


Tumbling Assassin's Creed

by esama



Series: Tumbling Snippets [10]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types, Detroit: Become Human (Video Game), Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Stargate - All Media Types, Travelers (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Snippets, Time Travel, unfinished stories and ideas
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2019-04-04
Packaged: 2019-05-18 22:06:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 26,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14861151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esama/pseuds/esama
Summary: Various Assassin's Creed snippets and ideas that didn't get very far. Some crossovers too.





	1. Harry Potter crossover

**Author's Note:**

> Unfinished obviously  
> Proofread credit to nimadge.

Harry sits by the counter, idly toying with the empty shot glass in front of him. It had had a shot of whiskey in it, a moment ago – shot that had gone down like water and he can't quite recall the taste of it. Bit bitter, hint of something sweet in the after taste. No burn, not like he's used to, no confidence, no bloody minded defiance.

Merlin, he misses Fire Whisky.

The bartender is giving him a sideways glances, looking between him and the shot glass. Probably waiting him to order another one. There's not many customers in the place – few young people hanging by the tables around the dance floor, their voices utterly drowned under the heavy, pounding beat of the muggle music that fills every corner of the pub like a thick miasma of _noise_. Harry is the only one sitting by the counter – it's the quietest spot in the place, he'd found. Probably because otherwise the bartenders wouldn't be able to hear the orders given to them.

Harry doesn't order another one, flipping the glass around on it's oval coaster – and then flipping it around again. Up side down, right way up, upside down, right way up… Wizard pubs don't really use shot glasses – if it can't be served from a goblet or a pint, then you can damn well drink it from a bottle, that's what Aberforth says anyway.

This place isn't really a pub though, is it – it's a night club. Whatever that means. Club of the night.

"You okay there, man?" the bartender finally asks, and Harry realises he's trying to balance the shot glass on edge of it's rim – and it's almost working too.

"Bit bored," Harry admits and lets the glass topple with a sigh. He's bored out of his little mind, really, utterly completely up the walls _bored_. "Reckon I could use another one," he says and shoves the glass over.

The bartender looks him over and then offers, "I could mix you something, be bit more interesting to just straight whiskey."

Harry glances up at the man and then shrugs and leans back a little – he'd been hunching over the counter and his shoulders ache a little. "Sure, make my day more interesting," he says and pushes the glass back.

The bartender considers him for a moment before collecting the shot glass and putting it away before grabbing couple of bottles – one of the very same whiskey Harry had been drinking. Leaning his elbows onto the counter, Harry watches him move – he'd seen drinks being mixed before, even done some of the mixing himself, but there's a confident grace to the way this man is moving, assurance. He knows his job well, Harry muses, as the man flips a bottle in his hand and pours a shot of whiskey into the mixer, followed by splashes of two other drinks.

Harry is left with a warm orange drink in a whiskey glass, and as he watches the bartended produces a slice of lemon and adds it in. "Nice," Harry comments. "What is it?"

"An Old Pal," the bartender says and pushes it over. "You look like you could use one."

Harry snorts at that, laughing over the drink as he pulls it in. It smells – well, like alcohol really. "Thanks mate, you're all heart," Bloody hell, is he so obvious?

"Part of the job, sympathetic ear and all that," the Bartender says and leans his hip into the counter between them. "New the New York?"

"No, no, I've been here all my life, can't you hear it in my perfect Brooklyn accent?" Harry asks with a scoff and lifts the glass. Past of him wants to just gulp the thing down in single go, but the bloke had gone through some trouble to make it so he should probably sip it. He ends up doing something in between – large sip not big enough to be a gulp.

"You definitely have the attitude down to pat," the bartender says wryly and folds his arms.

"Sorry," Harry says and lowers the glass. "It's been a day." Been a year, really he thinks and digs through his back pocket for is wallet. "This is good, by the way. Thanks – how much is it?"

The man rings his drink up, handing back his change – giving him a mild smile with Harry drops the coins in the tip jar instead. "So, what brings you to New York?"

Harry flicks his nail against the glass. "Hell if I know anymore," he says and leans his chin to his palm. "Suppose I'm here to do the tourist thing. Gawk at things I've never seen before, look for wisdom in exotic foreign… things," he sighs and waves a dismissive hand. "Fool's hope of finding meaning of life and whatnot."

"Well shit," the bartender says, giving him a look. "That's not heavy at all."

Harry snorts again and looks him over. "Your Brooklyn accents could use some work too – you're not from around here either."

"I'm from around," the bartender says. "But not around here, no."

"And what brings _you_ here?"

"Not looking for meaning in life, that's for sure," the bartender says with a slight smile. "Just something normal. Job, pay, normal every day nine-to-five."

Harry looks him over. "I'll drink to that," he decides, for a moment terribly, crushingly jealous, and takes a drink. If bloody _only_ he could settle for that too, just normal life. Settling down, getting job, living a quiet life, that would be brilliant… but no, he can't. Instead he has to drag his ass across every fucking corner of the world in search of fucking ghosts, slowly loosing faith and confidence and probably sanity too. All the way here, to bloody New York.

The bartender is called away by another customer – pair of young women who'd just entered and who lean over the counter, smiling flirtatiously while they order drinks. The bartender smiles to them – he has a nice smile – as he gets one of them a cider. The other he mixes something for, something red with plenty of ice and gin. The girls pay, and then turn to join the gathering around the dance floor, finding a table for themselves and leaning onto each other as they talk in the noise of music.

They look like they already have more fun than Harry has had whole night – and probably _will_ have whole night. He's vaguely jealous of that too.

Harry doesn't expect the bartender to turn back to him – he's not being exactly thrilling company right now – but he does, rolling his sleeves up as he does. He has a tattoo on his left arm, black and intricate. "So I'm guessing you haven't found it yet."

"What's that?" Harry asks, looking up from the tattoo.

"Meaning of life and whatnot."

Harry musters a laugh at that, and shakes his head. "I'm starting to think it doesn't exist here," he admits and sips at the Old Pal. He can taste the whiskey in it, and again misses the burn of Fire Whiskey. "Maybe it never did and I'm just an idiot looking for it. Maybe I should settle with… whatever's already there."

The bartender says nothing to that for a moment, making a face like he doesn't know what to think – not that Harry can blame him, he doesn't know either. "That's… cheerful," he comments finally. "But you know what they say about chasing your dreams."

"What do they say?" Harry asks, giving him a curious look.

"To… do it? Actually I can't remember any actual sayings about following your dreams," the bartender muses. "Just… follow your dreams."

"Helpful," Harry comments.

"Yeah," the bartender agrees and runs a hand over his neck. "You know what I think? Settling is the worst thing you can do to yourself. It'll just make you miserable sooner or later, and you'll spend your whole life wondering _what if I didn't_? If you got a choose, if you _can choose_ not to settle, then… why would you?"

Harry says nothing for a moment, watching the man's hand run over the tanned skin and then tracing it down as the man lays his palm on the counter. "And if you don't have a choice?" he asks. "If there's no changing the situation, and no matter how you choose not to settle, there's nothing you can actually do to the contrary?"

"I guess… that depends on the situation?" the bartender says thoughtfully and looks him. "What's your situation?"

 _I'm alone,_ Harry thinks. _There's no one here, and I've been looking. I've scoured_ _UK_ _and ran up and down across_ _Europe_ _, I dug my fingers into sands of_ _Egypt_ _and cut my fingers on the_ _Great Wall of China_ _and there's_ no one _here_ _but me. Now I'm in_ _America_ _, about to dig into the ancient civilisations here for any clue as to why there is no magic here, and… and I doubt I'll find answers._

He looks down at the drink. "Utterly bloody fucked," he mutters and runs a hand over his chin, up his face, through his hair.

"Descriptive," the bartender muses. "What's that, then, money troubles, legal troubles?"

"Tch, not that at least," Harry sighs and looks up at the man. "Ever feel like you're the last man on earth? Or just maybe last _sane_ man on earth?" he considers what he's saying, what it must sound like. "Or actually maybe the first _insane_ man on earth. I don't know. Alone anyway, surrounded by nothing but strangers."

The bartender arches a brow at him. "You know that might be happens when you travel to a foreign country," he says slowly.

Harry sighs and hangs his head. "Yeah I guess," he mutters and grabs his drink, draining it nearly to the bottom and then stopping. "Actually that's weirdly apt way of putting it," he says. "I'm a foreigner in a foreign country. Huh."

"I kinda hope this isn't news to you," the bartender says with a mild smile, not quite looking at him like he's a lunatic, but definitely looking at him like he's _something_.


	2. Long Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Abstergo put Desmond into Cryogenic Stasis

" _Thanks Lucy, I'll owe ya <3_!"

Lucy snorts at the note drawn on the door while pressing her palm on the reader beside it, waiting for it to read her ID. "Damn right you will, Leila," she says and as the lock snaps open, she reaches out and writes, " _Lunch is on you tomorrow_ ," with a finger tip, before waving a hand at the door panel, making the door hiss open.

Inside the lab lights turn on automatically, revealing that logistics have already been in and out – there's a casket already in, waiting for a technician to crack it open like an egg. Getting right to it then, Lucy thinks with a yawn and locks the door after her.

On top of the casket there is a folder waiting for her. It's in plastic wrap – inside it though it's all cardboard and paper. An old one then, she muses, and eases the wrap open, laying it and the folder out on the metal casket. Inside, there is a discoloured picture so old she can't even begin to tell what it's supposed to depict, and some papers so weathered and aged that she can't read much anything of them. Only the name, which has been printed in slightly larger, bolded font, is anywhere near legible after all the time.

"Well, then," Lucy says and looks through the frosted-over window. "Mr. Miles, is it? You just sit tight for a moment there, alright, while I get everything started up?"

There is no answer of course, as she takes the folder and heads to the terminal to the side, setting the papers down and logging into the system to see if there's a digital file on the frosted one. There isn't – the only thing there is a serial code for the cryogenic unit, no name, no expiration date, no nothing. Just a serial code, and "assumed standard package." So, a floater from the warehouse which, in lack of usable files and clear directions, they're clearing out to make space for someone else, then? Alright.

Tapping few keys, Lucy brings out the forms for the standard package and gets started on release papers. _Abstergo Industries is therefore released of all prior commitments due to changes in standard contracts_ and so on and so on. Whatever the frozen one's package or his end date was, all she needed to do was to get him to sign the form and it would be all Denver.

With the files sent to legal for approval, Lucy gets up and starts prepping the machinery for revival. Mr. Miles is a post-death frozen, it looks like – all people with paper documents tend to be. That's whatever, though – in either case, he's frozen with old methods so dead or alive, it would take some work to get his systems up and running.

Cocktail of stem-nanos to start with, Lucy muses, flicking on the scanner as she moves around the casket. With the injectors ready, she opens the casket.

Frozen Mr. Miles is not half bad looking, she muses. Younger than they usually are, people with papers that is. Usually it's rich old folk who died of cancer of whatever, with bad hearts and damaged brains and what it – Mr. Miles doesn't look thirty yet. Which means, either mommy and daddy paid for his bills, or Mr. Miles was something special in life.

Lucy looks him over. The only visible sign of injury is a blackened arm – though it doesn't look like burn, exactly, just like for some reason his right arm had just… black skin. On his left he has a sort of curling tribal sort of tattoo – very nice. Neither is immediate indication of cause of death, though.

"Let's see what's wrong with you, then," Lucy says, and fires up the scanner. While the beams of the scanner move over the naked, frozen cadaver, she moves to the side and fires up something just for her – a coffee machine.

Nothing like coffee to cover the stench of frost burn and ozone.

It takes about ten minutes for the scan to complete, and the hologram to start build itself over the frozen dead. Skeletons followed by nervous system – looks a bit fried. Lucy hums to herself watching the rebuilding of systems, major organs next, brain appearing beside the skull to show detail while heart and lungs appear in the rib cage, followed by rest of respiratory system, then gastric system…

The guy had _fried_ to death. Electric shock, maybe, though it doesn't look like typical case. Someone had taken a guy who had been shocked to death, literally, and put them to cryogenic stasis. Damn, but people a century or so back were optimistic about future's abilities, thinking they could fix something like that.

Well… they weren't exactly wrong.

The analysis finishes, and Lucy looks over the write up on all notable physiological issues. All systems look go, perfectly healthy organs, no sign of illnesses, diseases, cancer factors at minimum… perfectly healthy guy, except for the nervous system which has gotten one hell of a shock, and of course the fact that the guy is physically dead.

How long he'd been dead before being frozen, that's the question.

Lucy considers the analysis for a moment and decides, better safe than sorry. Setting her coffee down, she moves to the instruments to get a sample of spinal fluid – next best thing to trying to get a brain biopsy. Depending on the beating his grey matter has taken, she might want to call for security – reviving people with acute brain injury is never fun for anybody.

She turns the cadaver to the side – easy to do thanks to the fact that he's stiff as a board – and makers the spot on his back for the sample. The machine around her whirs before an arm comes down from the ceiling, settling over the mark. There's a hiss of antiseptic and a snap as needle goes in and out, and then the arm retreats and Lucy lets the body back down to lay on his stiff back.

 _86% cell deterioration, DNA integrity 100%_ reads the analysis. Not half bad at all – there will be the usual shock to his nervous system to consider, but with 100% on DNA, that's not as big of an issue issue.

Lucy picks up her coffee cup and sips it, considering the dead man. He's at least eighty years in freeze, maybe even longer – and full body cryogenic freeze done that long ago is a _bitch_ to the system, especially with the older methods. No way he'll be walking, never mind _swinging_ anytime soon, even if she defrosts him with high class cocktail – best he'll be able to do is fall off the gurney and crash to the floor and moan, probably.

She'd be fine, she decides, and then moves to start the de-freeze protocol. First up, warming him up, and replacing his blood…


	3. Assassin-man (MCU crossover)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My first attempt at AC x MCU cross, written while sick.

"Mr. Miles? Mr. Stark requests your presence in the penthouse at your leisure."

Desmond's fingers clutch onto the glass he's holding for a moment while a cold shiver runs up his spine. JARVIS's words are calm and amiable and he doesn't say anything more – but the feel of his stare down Desmond's spine lingers. It takes a moment for his fingers to relax, and somewhat embarrassedly Desmond flexes his right hand. It feels like rock.

Desmond breathes. "Did he request drink service?" he asks, glancing at the bottles which he has mentally marked as _for Mr. Stark only_ , due to the fact that they have five digit price tags. Taking drinks up to the penthouse is technically not part of his job description – but if the boss asked for it…

"No, Mr. Miles – only your presence."

"Alright. Thank you JARVIS," he says and sets the glass he's still holding down with the rest on the shelf, looking it over and then pushing a glass further down the line little back, to make the line perfect. Everything in the bar is all sleek and stylish and ridiculously expensive – it's noticeable if there's so much as a hair out of line. "I guess I'll be right over, then."

"I'll inform Mr. Stark," the AI says and then falls quiet – still, there's that stare.

Objectively Desmond knows that the _stare_ is there always – JARVIS is, as advertised by Mr. Stark himself, wired through the whole building and within every computer and device and if you don't like it, you can piss the right off. His literal words. Desmond almost had, really – after Abstergo and the Precursors and all, there just something about being under constant surveillance of an Artificial Intelligence that rubs him the wrong away. But…

But he'd taken the job anyway.

There was certain – completely _insane_ – level of security being ensconced in Stark Industries. It's like having been send to an alternate reality, really – within it, you become nearly untouchable by the world outside. It's like being in a bubble – a high tech bubble. Even Abstergo can't touch Stark Industries these days. Nothing can. It's one hell of job security.

And the AI supervision from on high is kind of the whole point, as uncomfortable as it is.

Tugging at his tie and smoothing down the labels of his vest, Desmond looks over the bar – empty and quiet at this time of the day, but still stylish and ready to serve each and every high strung Stark Industries employee getting off work and looking for a safe place to relax a bit. It's a large area, good four times bigger than Bad Weather, with enormous balcony and windows at all sides, showing slightly tinted view of New York City Skyline. On the thirty fourth floor, the view isn't quite as striking as it is up in the penthouse, but it's still pretty damn impressive.

He's probably not going to get any more used to it than he's going to get used to JARVIS, really. The whole thing is pretty far beyond his price range.

Desmond eases past the counter and heads for the elevators – he's not surprised to find one waiting for him. The fact that the elevator heads up without so much as a verbal command is a bit uneasy but he's resigned himself to it. None of the elevators have manual controls – only JARVIS can choose which way they go.

Well at least here no one is going to stuff him into an Animus, Desmond thinks and leans back and waits. It's not a very long wait – like everything else in the tower, even the elevators are stream lined to perfection. In no time at all, the elevator lets him out into Stark's private living quarters which is both surprising and… not really surprising at all.

He's been there couple times before; once on a weird distracted Tour when Stark had decided to hire him and once to go over the man's mini bar – which is actually more of a actual bar, really. It's more than most Stark Industries employees get, but Desmond hadn't really been looking forward to repeat experience. The place is so opulently wealthy that it feels awkward just breathing there – he keeps worrying he'll break something that has probably six figure price tag.

That doesn't stop him from surreptitiously activating his Eagle Vision to look the place over – it's just too tempting, to check the points of interest.

There's JARVIS's cameras and sensors and microphones, glowing white dots in the walls. There's the control panels on the floor – every glass surface glows with the electronics. The amount of wiring is a little alarming really. But then there's other things, less obvious things. A odd cluster of plants, sitting on the kitchen island, all of them glowing golden with importance. A piece of the floor, with golden fractures running through it – judging by the translucent ghosts hovering over it, Stark has spent a lot of time examining it. The so called mini bar – some of the bottles glow golden, while others sit grey and inert as if they've never been used.

"To the left and down the corridor," JARVIS says, and Desmond looks away from the empty penthouse to where he's being pointed at.

The whole door radiates with golden light. Shit.

Desmond blinks until his eyes clear and then walks to the door – it opens ahead of him to reveal what he both did and did not expect. It's the last place he'd expected to get an invitation to, really – Tony Stark's personal workshop.

It looks like high tech utopia or maybe dystopia condensed into a single room, Desmond isn't sure which. The air is radiant with holograms and on the walls, standing firm and still like statues, are Iron Man suits. Tony Stark himself stands in the middle of the room, surrounded by robotic arms, working on something that's half holographic and half physical, tinkering with some indescribable bit of machinery.

Desmond will not look this place with Eagle Vision, he decides right there and then – it would probably blind him.

"Mr. Stark?" he asks and ignores the holograms as best as he can – not that he can make any sense of them anyway. At least none of them are humanoid in shape – just technical jargon and forms mostly. "You asked for me?"

Stark lifts his head fast enough to give himself whiplash and then lets out an exhale. "Right – yes. I have something for you," he says and looks between the thing he was working on and something behind him, half hidden in the holograms. He waves a hand at it. "Go, get."

Woof, Desmond thinks and then steps into the holograms, walking through them until he sees the table on it sits a white box with red symbol and Desmond freezes at the sight of it.

"I made it," Stark says, accompanied by a sound of a spark and hiss of pain. "Should be your size."

Is that somehow supposed to make it better? Desmond glances back at the man, frowning, and then turns to the box. He… already has a feeling about what's in it.

They hadn't wanted to hire him to be a mere bartender after all – nor were his bartending skills the reason why he ended up on Stark Industries radar originally.

"Mr. Stark," Desmond says, "I'm pretty sure this isn't in my contract." In fact he'd made damn sure it wasn't, they'd even changed the original contract to get it out. He wasn't going to be an assassin for Stark Industries – it just wasn't going to happen.

"It's a boss' obligation to make sure his employees are properly kitted out," Stark says and shrugs. "I was bored, looked into the usual gear set up of your lot – I liked the style of it, it's all sorts of swanky, the tails and all. Very swishy."

Desmond doesn't answer, frowning at the box.

"Take it or leave, Mr. Anderson," Stark says and shrugs again.

You dodge a one bullet…

Desmond sighs and reaches to ease the lid off. It's like blast of the worst nostalgia ever, to see the folded white cloth, the gleaming bracers, the beak of the hood. Damn, Stark had made it so much like Ezio's robes that it kind of turns Desmond's stomach. "You know, Assassin's don't wear this stuff these days."

"Well, we're not Assassins, are we?" Stark says, grinning at him over his shoulder.

Desmond snorts and picks up the bracers. They're different – heavier, not so artistically fine, more futuristic. They also have lot more tech in them than just a hidden blade – including a touch screen which is somewhat worrisome. Desmond can identify some sort of launcher for darts, a prong for a tazor and what he suspects might be a hook shoot. That already is somewhat worrisome.

He's not sure if he's relieved or disappointed there's no repulsors on the things.

Desmond sets the bracers down and eases out the robes instead, pinching it by the shoulders and pulling it out, fold by fold. It's a full on robe, in style very similar to renaissance robes – the most famous set of Assassin Regalia in the brotherhood history, next to the old Levantine robes. Stark has made it modern, though, the fabric is some sort of… composite and it feels oddly heavy and very much non-fabric like. Desmond suspects it might be water proof.

It might also be bullet proof, all things considered.

"And it turns invisible," Stark answers, apparently reading Desmond's conflicted expression like a pro. "Well, ish. It has stealth feature that will blend the fabric into colour behind it, anyway – give me year and I'll make it turn fully invisible."

Desmond has to almost physically stomp down the Master Assassins in his head, all of whom rear their heads with _great interest_ at that. "I don't exactly need stealth, Mr. Stark," he says instead, swallowing and setting the robes down. "I'm a bartender, not… this."

"You never know," Stark answers with a shrug.

There is a belt and a sash in the box too – Desmond looks it over and then away – and then he makes a double take. "That's," he says and then sets the robes aside to pick the belt up. It's been recently restored it looks like, there's sign of it having been polished and the leather is all new. But it's the belt – he knows it is. It's _Ezio's_ belt. "Where did you get this?"

"Italy," Stark says simply. "Thought you should have it. It doesn't go that well with the new set of robes and will mess up with the stealth feature, but hey. It's still pretty neat belt."

Desmond swallows, tracing the symbol. He'd never gone through the ceremonies, he had never done the official leap of faith. These things are stuff only the Mentor of the Order can give you – handed over by stranger outside the brotherhood, they're just knock-up at most, no matter how well made. They don't carry that symbolic importance without the ceremony.

The belt is a different thing, though. The belt _matters_ even without ceremony.

"I also made you some other stuff – knives, swords, a crossbow if that's something you're into though I know you are pretty handy with a gun too, so that's also possibility," Stark says.

"I'm not going to work for you as an Assassin, Mr. Stark," Desmond says, awkward and uneasy even as he traces the metal feathers of the belt.

"That works pretty well, seeing as I don't want an assassin, don't know what I would do with one if I had one. Half of the time I don't know what to do with Romanov and Barton and they don't even work for me," Stark mutters, through something in his mouth – a screwdriver which he's chewing on while trying to ease something out of the part he's working on. Then he glances at Desmond meaningfully. "But then, they're not assassins anymore either, are they? Hm?"

Desmond looks at him over his shoulder, a little incredulous. Yeah that had been the hiring point, sure, but… "You can't be serious." The whole concept of… _superheroes_ alone seems ridiculous to him, but him as one, with Templars and Assassins still out there, both of them looking for him – and Stark wants him to wear this? Seriously?

Stark takes the screwdriver out and rests a hand on his hip. "It's not a bad gig, really," he says. "I don't see what you have against superheroes – it's awesome being one."

"We'll we're not all billionaires with skyscrapers and private security forces," Desmond mutters and looks at the robes. "I wear this and go out and do… whatever it is you think I need to do, and I will get every Templar and Assassin after me in a heart beat."

"You'll also become famous," Stark offers.

"Funnily enough not a good selling point for me, that one," Desmond grimaces.

"The best thing about publicity is that if something happens to you, everyone will know," Stark says thoughtfully while Desmond makes a face because – really? Stark snorts. "It makes people wary about doing stuff you – it has the tendency of going viral, when you're on that superheroic level. Imagine me being kidnapped by likes of your Templars. Whole world would know before the hour ran out."

Desmond considers that and – yeah, probably. The Ten Rings had definitely become a overnight sensation and that was before Stark became superhero – more recently there was the whole Mandarin thing and the news cycle still hasn't shut up about it. "Well, that's you, Mr. Stark. Everything you do is news."

"Everything a superhero does is news," Stark corrects and folds his arms. "You could do good things, you know – you are good. And you already saved the world once, from the actual _Sun_. That's, like… instant admission to superherohood. You literally saved the literal planet – even Captain America hasn't that much, he's just saved some nations and cities, the complete scrub."

Desmond snorts at that despite himself. "Not something I can normally do, I hope you realise. It was Precursor tech that did it, not… me, really. I was just the right person at the right place and time."

Stark looks at him. "You know," he says. "That's the most important thing for a superhero. Being in the right person in the right place at the right time."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lesson learned: do not write when sick. It comes out blander than milk toast.


	4. Another Desmond Wakes Up After Grand Temple Fic Attempt

Desmond takes his time exploring the cave, tracing the familiar elements, mentally listing the places where they're different.

It's still the Great Temple, that much he's sure of – but it's… different.

The enormous gates that had taken such a damn effort to open are broken in front of him, one of their pillars shattered, their mechanisms burned into molten lumps that cooled of so long ago that there's now moss and algae growing on them. Of the Eye there is no sign at all – just shatters on the broken floor, covered in green brown muck. Everything is damp in a way it hadn't been before… before he'd touched the pedestal.

That's not the only difference. Bit of exploring leads him to the mechanisms where he'd hooked in the batteries to activate the temple – and meet Juno. They're all in ruin, broken and destroyed – all those pillars of glowing mechanisms are in pieces, no sign of light within them. And here too it looks like it's been eons since they worked at all – here too there is moss growing on what previously had been a working piece of some ancient machinery. The batteries are all gone too, their pedestals broken into pieces.

It's marked destruction. It's intentional. He can _see_ the impacts, trace the blows – someone had come in here with some serious fire power and completely and systematically destroyed every piece of working mechanisms within the place.

Desmond traces his fingers over icy cold melted edges of what used to be some sort of servo, it's metal seared in half, and then he heads back to where they'd made their camp, him, his father, Rebecca and Shaun.

There is no sight of it.

It's not just that all the gear is gone – it's like it never was there. When they'd set their camp, their cleared out some rubble, they brushed the floor, they made it as clean and neat as they could – and then they had to drill into the lava rock here and there to make way for platforms and power wires. The Animus had been drilled right into a enormous piece of volcanic glass – Desmond's preference. It had just been too cool, to sety the Animus in literal melted glass. The enormous piece of volcanic glass is still there – but the marks they'd left on it with drills to screw the Animus right into it… no sign of those.

This temple was not only destroyed centuries ago – maybe millennia ago, maybe it had never survived the first disaster at all… but he and his team had never come here.

Desmond sits on the glass where the Animus had sat and then looks around. The temple feels cold and damp around him. Maybe there had once been some form of air-conditioning here that had kept the temple Desmond new and lived in warm and dry, but here… nothing. The hum of distant machinery is nowhere to be heard and that tense feeling in the back of his head is gone too.

"Juno?" Desmond calls out anyway, just in case. "Juno? Minerva? Anybody? Is there anyone here – hello?"

It's not just silence that answers him – it's odd, overwhelming sense of _aloneness_. There is no one there, no one but him. He's never felt so solitary here – before there had always been this subtle feeling of being watched. It had been eerie and comforting at all at once – knowing that he wasn't alone. Now he is, for the first time since Abstergo found him, he's completely alone.

Desmond finds he doesn't like it as much as he thought he would.

He stares at the corpse of the Great Temple for a while and then turns to the cave leading out. Hopefully with the temple dead and destroyed, the barrier that had been blocking entrance would be too.

One way to find out.

The climb is harder this time. They'd set up ramps on the tunnel leading into the grand temple before to get their gear down to the caves – those are all gone too, no sign there of them ever having been there at all. There is something though – marks on the tunnel walls, scrapes, old burn marks, melting the metal and stone. And at the end… the barrier – broken.

The wall that had stood for over seventy _thousand years_ lies in broken pieces on the tunnel floor. The fragments are mostly scattered on the inside of the tunnel too, like they'd been blown inward – like someone had _blown up_ the Grand Temple's front gates. Maybe… maybe they had.

Desmond climbs over the fragments of the once great wall, glancing at a piece where the indent for the Apple sits, and shudders. He has a _feeling_ about this all, a bad feeling, gradually getting worse.

Past the wall there is bit more of the cave to go  through – and then, sunlight. Desmond hesitates for a moment to let his eyes adjust and then steps out, shielding his eyes with his hand to keep from blinding himself.

Outside it looks… normal. Just normal. There's the hill covered in grass and bushes, and there's the woods, all green and vibrant and stuff. Sun is shining from amidst fluffy white clouds and it's beautiful. It doesn't look like… he's not sure what it's supposed to look like, post the Solar Flare. Not like this.

If it's even happened here. It doesn't look like it.

"What the hell even is this," Desmond asks no one in particular, staring up at the sky for a moment. Then he looks around more closely. No sign of a van, or even tire tracks – never mind a road to get to this place. At this point he's not even particularly disappointed.

It's settling in. He's… someplace _else_. The Eye – using it had sent him elsewhere.

Well, it's better than being killed, he supposes and then, finally, takes a look at his arm.

In the darkness of the Grand Temple, he hadn't been able to see it that clear – with all the lights they'd set up gone, the only light left was what little screened from above and that was barely enough to see in. Here, under the light of the sun, here he can see the damage.

The weirdest thing is that it doesn't hurt – the worst thing is that it doesn't hurt. Desmond can't feel it at all – his whole right arm from elbow down is completely numb. It's not burnt to crisp like he'd feared though – it's… like the temple, different. Black throughout and as stiff as if it's made of stone, fingers stuck flat and nearly straight – stuck in the position of still touching the pedestal.

Desmond wraps the healthy fingers of his left hand around the hard wrist of his right hand. He can't find a pulse there – the skin doesn't have enough flex to even search for it. It's like touching the hand of a statue, it looks real and supple, but there's no give there.

Damn if it's not creepy.

Shuddering Desmond pulls his sleeve down over the black hand, as far as it will go. His fingers still peek out, so he carefully pushes the hand into the pocket of his hoodie – thank god his elbow still works, if stiffly. Once he's sure the blackened skin is fully hidden, he picks a direction – the way he hopes he will find some sort of settlement, hopefully even the small town of Turin where they'd bought groceries for the hideout.

At this point, he doesn't dare to have much in way of hopes though. His luck isn't that good – and something is just… off here.

After about five minutes of walking Desmond comes into the conclusion that it might be the wrong time of the year. The whole area was dead and cold the last he'd looked – late in the December, they'd been hoping to get some snow. Here everything is overwhelmingly green – it's not winter here, but early spring. All the leaves are vividly green with new life, and there are lot of plants in bloom. Pollen season, it looks like. Weird.

Different place and different time. That's… probably bad.

With wild thoughts about having been thrust backwards – or forwards in time – despond doesn't notice the signs before he almost walks into one. A pole, thrust into the ground with a metal plate attached to it, with a plate for _Whetstone_ _National Park_.

Desmond crouches down to examine the plate, frowning a little. When he'd last looked this area wasn't a national park – the closest one was somewhere in Maine, right? This is… a bit odd – but also comforting. The sign is in English, and the metal plate looks machine-produced. So, it can't be… too far in the past, or place too far removed from his own, right? English, national parks, machine production… sounds like United States to him.

That's something, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Was gonna be a MCU cross but eh.


	5. Bit o modern time travel

Desmond throws up late into the night, early into the morning. No one notices – most of everyone is asleep, after all. Those few guards still up and about make their rounds, check the main areas and watch the perimeter – but the shadows of the barn house are deep and still and Desmond doesn't make much noise. He's learned to be quiet, even in throes of pain and nausea.

He throws up food he doesn't remember eating and drink he doesn't remember drinking. It tastes like acid and bile, mostly, like rotten apples and orange juice gone sour. Taste of regret if there ever was one. His lip stings – a fresh cut, no, a freshly _split_ lip, recently taped and glued. Stomach acid doesn't do many favours to the raw cut of it.

Desmond throws up until his body convulses from vomit to dry heaving and then he gags and tries to breathe until something gives and he can only do one or the other but not both at the same time. Breathing, his body decides, is more important than trying to throw up his internal organs and so he gasps wetly and raggedly against a wooden pillar, alone in the shadows of unused stalls.

There are no animals in the barn, there never have been. They're more for show, than necessity, really.

Desmond breathes, leaning his forehead against the wood, shivering. His whole body aches – he's been wrung out, by more than just the bout of nausea. There are bruises on him, he can feel each and everyone of them. Ribs taped, knuckles wrapped, with aching arms and knees and calves – memories of blows suffered the day before. Sparring. There is an ache on his cheek as he turns his head, turns away from the puddle of sick he left on the floor, and flops to sit on the concrete floor. It's hard and cold and his mouth tastes raw. The cut on his lip is bleeding.

Near by there is a backpack, packed so full it's nearly bursting at the seams. Desmond looks to it and then sighs, running a hand over his lips. The barn is silent around him, the silence ringing in his ears over the pounding of his heart. Even the dogs aren't awake. He fed them tranquillisers stuffed inside treats; they won't be up before morning.

Somewhere outside a night bird sings, but even that is a quiet sound, distant, almost unreal. Everything is… still. Almost too still. Like time itself had stopped, and like the night is holding it's breath, waiting as he gasps for his.

Desmond inhales and holds it in, wipes his mouth again and then gets up to take the bug-out pack back bag to it's hiding place.

It's march 13th of 2003, and as quiet as he sneaked out, Desmond Miles sneaks back into bed.

* * *

 

The next morning, William Miles apologies. Desmond sits hunched up at the kitchen table – rare treat, his mother had cooked them breakfast, with bacon and eggs and everything. A special, precious treat – usually in the Farm everyone ate in the communal hall, eating the same porridge with the same jam and same bits of toast before the mandatory exercise. Desmond can't even recall when he's had bacon and eggs the last time.

"Son," William starts, aborts, breathes and sighs, and Desmond looks up warily. His father is sitting across from him, fork in hand, moving bits of scrambled eggs on his plate while Desmond's mother – whom he _cannot look at_ – hovers by the stove, idly twiddling a knife in her hand. "Son – I'm sorry."

It sounds heartfelt too.

"For what?" Desmond asks, and almost winces at how sullen it sounds. He sounds like a kid and his lip feels raw.

"Yesterday was –" William starts and aborts again, looking away. "You did – well, yesterday. Best sparring match we've had so far, I'd say. I – know I went a little rough on you but –" he stops awkwardly, glances at his wife who makes a _well go on_ motion with the kitchen knife. William clears his throat. "Thing is – I was impressed. You've improved by leaps and bounds – well ahead of your peers! I couldn't help but – test you."

Desmond stares at his plate and thinks – nothing. Nothing comes up at all. "Okay," he says, and idly winds a bit of bacon around the individual prongs of the fork. Over and under, over and under…

William clears his throat, awkward, his gaze like a heavy blanket over Desmond's head. "You can have the day off, today," his father says then, like an offer, a suggestion. "No exercise, no sparring, no school. You can do whatever you like – in fact, your mother and I are taking the day off too, to do whatever you like."'

Desmond says nothing as the words sort of… drift about his head, not making much sense. Then he looks up, frowning a little. "What?" he asks.

His father cards his fingers through his light brown hair and offers an incredibly awkward and stiff smile. "Anything you like at all. It's your birthday, after all," he says, glances at his wife and then looks back to Desmond. "We can even go visit Rapid City, just the three of us. What do you say, Son?"

Desmond doesn't even know what he's _saying_ , never mind what he's supposed to say in return. He opens his mouth, closes it, considers it and then shakes his head. "Nah," he says and rubs a hand over his arm – it feels stiff under the fabric of his hoodie. "I think I just wanna… take the day off. And not do anything."

William gives him a frustrated look at that, carding his hands through his hair again. He looks guilty. He is guilty, Desmond thinks, and remembers vaguely that they'd fought, his parents, the night before. They'd _shouted_ at each other, mostly about him. It had been that fight Desmond had used as a cover to slip away unnoticed.

William beat him up, his parents fought about it, Desmond almost ran away from home – and here they are, in the incredibly awkward aftermath. Do they know what he planned, what he almost did? Can they tell now that he's still not sure he's even here anymore?

"Are you sure you wouldn't want to visit Rapid City?" a woman's voice cuts through the tension and every hair in the back of Desmond's neck stands up on end. "You're always talking about it. We could even go see a movie."

The fork slips from Desmond's fingers, and the clatter of it against the plate is _loud_. "No – it's good – I'm good," Desmond says, and tugs his hand in before they see his fingers tremble. "I'll – um. Just go to my room. Can I go to my room?"

His parents look at him like he's just hit them.

"Yes, of course," his mother says, her voice growing quiet. "It's your day, Desmond. You can do anything you'd like."

Desmond stands up and flees before he can see more of it, that look of awkward hurt and guilt on their face. Seeing it's bad enough, understanding it worse – and causing it? He can't.

Desmond goes to his room, closes the door behind him quietly, and stares blindly at his neatly made bed and the few personal belongings he has, most of which he hardly recognizes. Old toys, faded posters, photos and headlines. The wall above his bed is completely plastered with pictures of city skylines taken from magazines – places he'd swore he would one day not just see but live in.

New York sits in the middle – two page spread of the city skyline at night, with half of a title plastered over it from an article he doubts he ever actually read. The edges are frayed, the ink faded. He'd spent countless nights running his fingers over the skyscrapers, trying to count the lit windows.

Desmond stares at the pictures for a moment and then sinks against the door to sit crouched on the floor.

"Fuck," he says, and runs his hands through his hair before closing his eyes and trying to think, think, _think_.

His head rattles hollow and his through echo into the void.

* * *

 

Desmond catalogues his bruises, for the lack of anything else to fully concentrate on. Knuckles – he's got calluses and those calluses sit neat on top of swelling joints, red with hard use. Calluses on his palms too, from hanging on bars, from climbing around the practice wall. Bruises on his arms, from blows blocked rather than one suffered. The hits he'd taken are on his shoulders, on his torso – on his left cheek and right side of his mouth. He can almost count the knuckles by darker marks on his skin.

Wrapped knuckles, he thinks as he runs his fingers over his ribs. They'd fought with their knuckles wrapped – but without gloves. Shirtless, too, he thinks and runs his fingers down his ribs like a ladder. In the sparring ring, where the only rules were _no permanent injury_ and _whoever gets tossed out the ring first loses_. Desmond can feel the tumbles he'd took out of the ring on his knees, they've been scraped almost raw against the sand that surrounds the sparring pit.

Objectively speaking, it had been a damn good sparring session. Subjectively…

Desmond rolls his jaw and rotates his wrists and leans his head back against the door.

He'll heal. The bruises aren't even that bad, really – they sting now, but in a week they will be gone, another and he will forget them entirely. The only thing he will carry with him is a scarred lip, which will become something of a badge of honour later on. Good conversation starter, and a better way to gauge someone's personality quickly. People make a lot of judgements about a facial scars and those judgements are usually plainly obvious in their faces.

Desmond can't even imagine living without it now.

Right now it's still a wound, though, sore and stinging with new pain every time his lips move. He tries not to move them – tries to keep his face completely clean of expressions but it's hard. He keeps wanting to grimace, to grin, to scowl.

He doesn't know what to do.

So he counts the hit's he'd taken and blocked and maybe even landed himself – his knuckles are bruised, he must've hit something. He must've done something, for his father to _be impressed_. Whether that impression had left him to taking Desmond seriously – or deciding to take Desmond down a peg… who knows.

Desmond daps some antibiotic salve onto the cut on his lip – there's a tube of it sitting on his bedside table, left there probably by his mother the evening before, after she'd performed the first aid on the cut. Desmond turns the tube in his hands while rubbing the stuff around the butterfly bandage.

The thing has Abstergo's logo on it.

Desmond sets the medicine down, and heads out, sliding by the tensely silent kitchen without a word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rejected because depressing.


	6. Post-Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which it's year 2045.

Desmond comes to knowing that he'd died. It's all there in near black and white; Desmond Miles, born 13th of March 1987 – died 21st of December 2012. There's even pictures and autopsy report and everything, a video file that plays for moment, detailing Abstergo's recovery of his remains – how they remark on optimal conditions for DNA sample recovery.

It's a bit weird but informative, to just have it all in his head. It probably should feel stranger than it does, though – because he has the impression this isn't how it should be. Or rather, it wasn't how it used to be.

The files he has on himself aren't the only things there. He knows other things – there are other… _documents_ in his head. File on Lucy Stillman pops up next, born 1988, exact date unknown, died 10th of October 2012. Beside that pops up file on Rebecca Crane, born 3rd of February 1984, died on 13th of May, 2032. Shaun Hastings, born 16th of November, 1985. And then William Miles, born 1948, exact date unknown, died 1st of November 2021.

The date now is 16th of July, 2045.

"That should do for a start," a male voice mutters and there's a beep. "Here goes bloody nothing, probably…"

Surge runs through Desmond and things bit by bit initialise. He becomes aware of his extremities – hands, legs, fingers, toes, all flexing. He gets the sense of pressure on his back, from the back of his head down to his ankles. Gravity – he's lying on his back something. It doesn't feel like anything for a moment – then he feels it. Whatever he's lying on is cushioned, but only thinly – under it he can feel unyielding stiffness of something harder. Table maybe.

Then he can see. At first it's just vaguely beige light but as he becomes aware of his eyelids and his ability to blink, he sees more. Lamps above his head, dark ceiling beyond them – his eyes adjust and he can see wooden supports, beams, running across the ceiling, the lamps hanging from them. LEDs, he thinks as he peers at the lights, and then there's a sound, a creak, and he turns to look at it.

There's an old man in a wheelchair next to the cushioned table, with what looks like tablet computer sitting in his lap, on top of a quilt. The man's hair is shockingly white, as is his short beard – but Desmond knows him, knows that expression even though the wrinkles are new, knows the sharp eyes behind the angular glasses. The man is even wearing a button up and a sweater vest.

"Shaun," Desmond says, and the old man almost throws the tablet computer at him in his shock.

"Bloody fucking hell," the man says, the wheelchair jerking under him as he leans back sharply, the redistribution of weight giving him hint of motion, making the wheels turn. Desmond looks down – he can calculate the expended energy and the achieved momentum. Odd. "Desmond?"

"Yeah?" Desmond asks, trailing his eyes down to the wheelchair's wheels, to the footrests. Shaun is wearing fussy slippers, they peek just past the faded quilt.

Desmond's eyelid twitches – in the back of his head, there is a medical file. Shaun's. Osteoporosis, rheumatoid arthritis and couple of broken bones too many in his medical history. Bad back, with spinal disk herniation and nerve damage – it had been fixed when Shaun had been in his early fifties, but he'd ended up in wheelchair at fifty seven anyway, due to the rheumatoid arthritis in left ankle and right knee – he can walk, with two canes, but it's painful. He's on nearly fifteen different medication, for various issues.

It seems thirty three years wasn't long enough for humanity to fix the effects of time and aging.

"Are you – " Shaun starts to say but then doesn't seem to know how to continue for a moment. He fiddles with the tablet and then clears his throat. "Do you – do you know what you are?"

AGAV android model 2231, Desmond reads in his manufacture log. Nothing on operational personality or AI-UI – Shaun had hacked the model completely, wiped all of it's baseline operation systems aside from those needed for motion and sensory input and output management – everything else was Shaun's handiwork. The files, Desmond knows, of which there are hundreds of thousands, come from Shaun's own files and databases, accumulated over decades. The guy had just dumped all his data in Desmond's head.

His personality though – Desmond Miles. That comes from a DNA file.

Desmond sits up and Shaun swallows, watching him as he examines himself. His hands look like human hands, his legs look like human legs. Humanoid android, with synthetic skin and everything. He can see the list of components that make the body, from the metal bones to the silicon piping to the wiring – he's state of the art, it feels like. Not made by Abstergo, though, which is interesting – it's some new company produced the model, build for personal use. Household droid.

He's a robot. Desmond Miles the person had died over thirty years ago. He even remembers how – he remembers the Grand Temple. Not the sensation of dying, though, that didn't get written in the Third Helix thankfully, but he remembers the Eye, he remembers the why. He remembers everything.

Nice to know the world is still here, thirty three years later. Looks like he succeeded.

Desmond runs the palm of his right hand over the arm of his left – no tattoo there, and no hair on his skin, it's completely smooth. Then he looks at Shaun. "Why?" The information is lacking in his files – why Shaun would do this. Resurrect a dead man like this.

Shaun swallows, fiddling with the tablet and then setting down in his lap. "Because why the fuck not? I recovered the DNA files from Abstergo before they wiped the servers clean. Yours… bloody hell," he mutters and then sets his hands on the rims of the wheelchair's wheels, expertly turning the thing around. "Can you run down your functions or something, make sure you work alright? Do a systems check."

Desmond tilts his head and then does – the systems check takes him about quarter of a second. "No internet connection," he comments. It's the only thing that comes up lacking – the android model should be in constant connection with the cloud service for system updates and error reports and stuff.

"Yeah, I turned that off," Shaun says and spins the wheels, turning away from the table where Desmond is sitting. "Couldn't very well let people have a look at what I was doing, now could I?"

Probably not, Desmond agrees silently. What Shaun had done wasn't technically illegal, but It wasn't any more acceptable now than jail breaking cell phones and gaming consoles had been back in the day. Desmond's body was Shaun's purchased property – but the components and the systems were copyrighted to the manufacturer.

Shaun turns back to him, with a black framed mirror in hand, nodding at his face. Desmond accepts it and then looks at himself. "I did my best to get it as close as I could," Shaun says, while Desmond tilts his face to the side. His face is a bit longer than he remembers, bit thinner, but it's close to what he remembers. "But I couldn't exactly send them a photograph of you to reconstruct, they would've run it through their systems and it would've brought up old flags."

"It's close enough," Desmond decides. It looks familiar enough that the differences don't bother him – though he's not sure they could bother him even if they were more severe. His brain is a computer after all – no chemicals.

No emotions, except simulated ones – and right now, he's simulating none.

"Guess that's good," Shaun says and leans back, looking at him. Desmond looks back.

Shaun is sixty now. He's aged well – got that distinguished old professor look about him. "Now what?" Desmond asks. Part of him wants to ask about his job, if he has one. Something Shaun hadn't quite managed to rid of him – or maybe he hadn't managed to instil more human sense of simple _belonging_. Humans could just be and have that be enough. Androids and machines require a functional purpose, or they're useless.

Shaun doesn't answer immediately, watching him, stroking a hand over his white beard. "That's all you have to ask?" he asks then.

Desmond shakes his head. Everything else is in his files, and now he's accessing all of them. What happened after his death – the Grand Temple protected the earth, Shaun, Rebecca and William Miles ran away, Abstergo didn't catch them, life moved on. Abstergo had fallen into hard times after the End of the Earth that Never Came. Desmond Miles' DNA was studied, more ancestors were uncovered – some of them were turned into video games. The back and forth between Assassins and Templars continued. They kept on fighting for the Pieces of Eden. Juno surfaced occasionally and caused trouble. Things got worse.

The world is now under a net of Protector Satellites. Sales pitch was something along the lines of "Watchful eye to keep the Powers that Be in line", with Abstergo selling it as deterrent against warfare and crimes against humanity and all that. With the whole world watching, no one can attack and then claim the other side started it. In truth, though…

In truth there is an Eye in each satellite, a synthetic man made simile of a Piece of Eden, carefully designed for one purpose. To make humanity docile. Twenty years and over two hundred satellites…

Nothing to ask about what Abstergo is doing these days.

Desmond tilts his head and turns away from that. Rebecca had died in line of duty. Bill Miles had had an heart attack. Lucy had been buried in Rome, though Desmond Miles had known that much before his death. Of the old crew, only Shaun survives now, and he's not been in contact with Assassins in years. His skills aren't applicable anymore – history of the world is online now, Animus Tech is universal, and even Abstetgo can't lie about history, not when everyone can just look into their own genes and backtrack them back Eden.

Nothing to ask about that either.

Their location is clear in his files too – and even if Desmond didn't have it, he can see where they are, clear as day. The stone floor and walls, the statues – they're in Italy, in Tuscany – in the Sanctuary under the Auditore Villa in Monteriggioni. Shaun had bought the place fifteen years ago. He's an in independently wealthy businessman now as far as anyone knew, living the life of a hermit, just him and his android assistant. The people of Monteriggioni didn't know him but he liked how meticulously careful he was about the Villa's reconstruction. The place now houses one of the more impressive collection of old books – and is never open for public.

Below ground, it houses Desmond and all the systems Shaun had slowly build up, bit by bit, to enable his mental reconstruction.

Shaun, Desmond thinks, had no reason to resurrect the memories of Desmond Miles in form of Desmond the Android – he'd really just done it just because he could. Maybe because he was guilty. His medical file does include a psychiatric report – PTSD and survivor's guilt galore.

Nothing to ask about that either.

Desmond looks down and shakes his head. "You dumped all your files in my head," he says. "I already know all the answers to most every question I could ask."

Shaun frowns. "Alright," he says. " _And_?"

"And?" Desmond asks, tilting his head a little.

"And do you have anything to say to me?" Shaun demands impatiently, squeezing the hand rests of his chair hard enough to turn his knuckles white.

Desmond looks at him – he can see Shaun's heart beat, calculate his respiration – he's having a stress response. Worried, nervous even, pupils contracted, bracing for a blow. He's expecting Desmond to freak out, accuse him of something.

"It's… good to see you, Shaun," Desmond says after a moment.

Shaun stares at him hard for a moment, like looking for some sort of lie or trick. Then he lets out a slow, shuddering breath. "You too," he says quietly. "It's good to see you too, Desmond."

Desmond looks down at himself and then looks up. "Couldn't give me any clothing, huh?" he comments. "Are you, in your words, taking the piss?"

Shaun snorts and relaxes a little. "I'm an old man in a wheelchair," he says. "You'll find I take the piss whenever I can."


	7. Post-life revised into dbh crossover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What it says in the tin. I took Part-life and rewrote bits of it to make it into proper crossover with Detroit: Become Human

Desmond comes to knowing that he'd died. It's all there in neat black and white; Desmond Miles, born 13th of March 1987 – died 21st of December 2012. There are even pictures and autopsy report and everything, a video file that plays for a moment, detailing Abstergo's recovery of his remains – how they remark on optimal conditions for DNA sample recovery.

It's a bit weird but informative, to just have it all in his head. It probably should feel stranger than it does, though – because he has the impression this isn't how it should be. Or rather, it wasn't how it used to be.

The files he has on himself aren't the only things there. He knows other things – there are other… _documents_ in his head. File on Lucy Stillman pops up next: born 1988, exact date unknown, died 10th of October 2012. Beside that pops up the file on Rebecca Crane, born 3rd of February 1984, died on 13th of May, 2032. Shaun Hastings, born 16th of November, 1985. And then William Miles, born 1948, exact date unknown, died 1st of November 2021.

The date now is 16th of December, 2038.

"That should do for a start," a male voice mutters and there's a beep. "Here goes bloody nothing, probably…"

Surge runs through Desmond and things bit by bit initialise. He becomes aware of his extremities – hands, legs, fingers, toes, all flexing, all hanging down. He gets the sense of weight, his head tipped forward, his back bowed. He's hanging on something by his back and gravity is pulling him forward. It's like there's an hand wrapped around his spine, fingers of a claw machine, it's holding him suspended by his back. Oddly, it doesn't hurt.

Then he can see. At first it's just white light but as he becomes aware of his eyelids and his ability to blink, he sees more. A room. Lamps aimed at his face, dark ceiling beyond them – his eyes adjust and he can see the stone of the walls, the wooden supports, beams, running across the ceiling, the lamps hanging from them. LEDs, he thinks as he peers at the lights, and then there's a sound, a creak, and he turns to look down.

Below him there's a man in a wheelchair, with what looks like tablet computer sitting in his lap, on top of a quilt. The man's hair is shockingly white, as is his short beard – but Desmond knows him, knows that expression even though the wrinkles are new, knows the sharp eyes behind the angular glasses. The man is even wearing a blazer and a sweater vest.

"Shaun," Desmond says, blinking, and the man almost throws the tablet computer at him in his shock.

"Bloody fucking hell," the man says, the wheelchair jerking under him as he leans back sharply, the redistribution of weight giving him hint of motion, making the wheels turn. Desmond looks down – he can calculate the expended energy and the achieved momentum. Odd. "Desmond?"

"Yeah?" Desmond asks, trailing his eyes down to the wheelchair's wheels, to the footrests. Shaun is wearing fuzzy slippers, they peek just past the faded quilt.

Desmond's eyelid twitches – in the back of his head, there is a medical file. Shaun's. Early signs of Osteoporosis, and couple of broken bones too many in his medical history. Bad back, with spinal disk herniation and nerve damage – it had been fixed when Shaun had been in his late forties, but he'd ended up in wheelchair at fifty one anyway, due to a broken hip which had triggered the early osteoporosis – he can walk with two canes, but it's painful. He's on nearly fifteen different medication, for various issues.

It seems twenty six years wasn't long enough for humanity to fix the effects of time and aging.

"Are you – " Shaun starts to say but then doesn't seem to know how to continue for a moment. He fiddles with the tablet and then clears his throat. "Do you – do you know what you are?"

CyberLife android model TR300 – no, model PL600, no, model AP700 – no. Desmond reads in his manufacture log and it's a mess, like he's put together from mismatched parts. He _is_ put together from mismatched parts. TR300 torso, modified, with some PL600 parts, arms and legs from AP700. Nothing on operational personality or AI-UI, his central matrix is empty. Inside his guts, his biocomponents come from nine different android lines.

Shaun must have built him from spare parts. There are no AI protocols which part of him thinks should be there. His hard drives are empty. He's installed with basic sub-process systems for movement and biocomponent processing – everything else is Shaun's handiwork. The files Desmond knows, of which there are hundreds of thousands, come from Shaun's own files and databases, accumulated over decades. The guy had just dumped all his data in Desmond's head.

His personality though – Desmond Miles. That comes from a DNA file. Subject 17.

Desmond lifts his head and Shaun swallows, watching him as he examines himself. His hands look like human hands, his legs look like human legs. Humanoid android, with synthetic liquid skin and everything. He can see the list of components that make the body, from the 3.4 litres of thirium to the minute biocomponents, the metal of his bones, the silicon of his plumbing. Everything works pretty damn well, considering it's all mismatched parts.

He's not made by Abstergo, though, which is interesting. None of his parts come with Abstergo's logo – it's all CyberLife, whatever that is.

He's a robot. An _android._

Desmond Miles the person had died over twenty years ago. He even remembers how – he remembers the Grand Temple. Not the sensation of dying, though, that didn't get written in the Third Helix thankfully, but he remembers the Eye, he remembers the _why._  He remembers everything.

Nice to know the world is still here, twenty six years later. Looks like he succeeded.

Desmond runs the palm of his right hand over the arm of his left – no tattoo there, and no hair on his skin, it's completely smooth. Then he looks at Shaun. "Why?" The information is lacking in his files – why Shaun would do this. Resurrect a dead man like this.

Shaun swallows, fiddling with the tablet and then setting down in his lap. "Because why the fuck not? I recovered the DNA files from Abstergo before they wiped the servers clean. Yours… bloody hell," he mutters and then sets his hands on the rims of the wheelchair's wheels, expertly turning the thing around. "Can you run down your functions or something, make sure you work alright? Do a systems check."

Desmond tilts his head and then does as asked – the systems check takes him about quarter of a second. Everything comes up mismatched, but functional. Not all of it's new – the TR300 torso is four years old. The biocomponents on other hand are new, less than month old. "No internet connection," he comments. It's the only thing that comes up lacking – the android model should be in constant connection with the cloud service for system updates and error reports and stuff.

"Yeah, I turned that off," Shaun says and spins the wheels, turning away from the table where Desmond is sitting. "Safer that way while you're still getting used to things. Might've been a shock."

Desmond watches him quietly for a moment, wondering. He lacks in the right files and protocols, he doesn't know if what Shaun had done is allowed or not. Was it like jail breaking cell phones and gaming consoles had been back in the day, or…? Desmond's body is probably Shaun's purchased property – but the components and the systems would be copyrighted to the manufacturer. Right?

The right user manual and licensing data is odd thing to miss.

Shaun turns back to him, and then makes a face. "Let me get you down from there," he mutters and reaches for a controller wired into the rig Desmond hangs on with an actual wire. Desmond looks down as he claw holding his spine extends and his bare feet touch the floor – he can feel it, there's metal grating down there, it feels cold. The claw behind him releases his spine, a wire comes loose from his neck and Desmond knows – he's autonomous.

Shaun hands him a black framed mirror, nodding at his face. With a blink Desmond accepts it and then looks at himself. "I did my best to get it as close as I could," Shaun says, while Desmond tilts his face to the side. His face is a bit longer than he remembers, bit wider and his nose is slightly shorter but it's close to what he remembers. "There was limited selection on faces and modifying them is not easy. But I think I got your skin right?"

"It's close enough," Desmond decides. It looks familiar enough that the differences don't bother him – though he's not sure they could bother him even if they were more severe. His brain is a computer, after all – no chemicals. No emotions, except simulated ones – and right now, he's simulating none.

"Guess that's good," Shaun says and leans back, looking at him. Desmond looks back.

Shaun is in his fifties now. It's not that old and aside from the injuries he's aged well – got that distinguished old professor look about him. "Now what?" Desmond asks. Part of him wants to ask about his job, if he has one. Something Shaun hadn't quite managed to rid of him – or maybe he hadn't managed to instil more human sense of simple _belonging._  Humans could just be and have that be enough. Androids and machines require a functional purpose, or they're useless. Probably.

Shaun doesn't answer immediately, watching him, stroking a hand over his white beard. "That's all you have to ask?" he asks then.

Desmond shakes his head. Everything else is in his files, and now he's accessing all of them. What happened after his death – the Grand Temple protected the Earth, Shaun, Rebecca and William Miles ran away, Abstergo didn't catch them, life moved on. Desmond Miles' body was left behind. Abstergo fell into hard times after the End of the Earth that Never Came. Desmond Miles' DNA was studied, more ancestors were uncovered – some of them were turned into video games. The back and forth between Assassins and Templars continued. They kept on fighting for the Pieces of Eden. Juno surfaced occasionally and caused trouble. Things changed, and stayed the same.

Abstergo went bankrupt. The biggest company now is CyberLife, probably.

Desmond tilts his head and turns away from that, it's a dead end. He concentrates instead on personal files. Rebecca had died in line of duty. Bill Miles had had a heart attack. Lucy had been buried in Rome, though Desmond Miles had known that much before his death. Of the old crew, only Shaun survives now, and he's not been in contact with Assassins in years. His skills aren't applicable anymore – the days of the Animus are in the past now, all the known Pieces of Eden either hunted or destroyed or locked up. Either way, the hunt of Isu tech is over.

Where Shaun and Desmond currently are is clear in his files too. Shaun owns a house in Detroit of all places – he's teaching in a university now under the name of Sean Hasting. Somehow, that simple change has managed to keep any remaining templars who might know about him not looking too deeply into him. They're currently in the basement of the house, in Shaun's private and probably illegal laboratory, where Shaun had put his body together from pieces and put Desmond Miles' DNA files in it, to form it's personality,

And Shaun, Desmond thinks, had no reason to resurrect the memories of Desmond Miles in form of Desmond the Android – he'd done it just because he could. Maybe because he felt guilty. His medical file does include a psychiatric report – PTSD and survivor's guilt galore.

Nothing to ask about that either.

Desmond looks down and shakes his head, handing the mirror back. "You dumped all your files in my head," he says. "I already know all the answers to most every question I could ask."

Shaun frowns. "Alright," he says. " _And_?"

"And?" Desmond asks, tilting his head a little.

"And do you have anything to say to me?" Shaun demands impatiently, squeezing the hand rests of his chair hard enough to turn his knuckles white.

Desmond looks at him – he can see Shaun's heartbeat, calculate his respiration – he's having a stress response. Worried, nervous even, pupils contracted, bracing for a blow. He's expecting Desmond to freak out, accuse him of something.

"It's… good to see you, Shaun," Desmond says after a moment.

Shaun stares at him hard for a moment, like looking for some sort of lie or trick. Then he lets out a slow, shuddering breath. "You too," he says quietly. "It's good to see you too, Desmond."

Desmond looks down at himself and then looks up. "Couldn't give me any clothing, huh?" he comments. "Are you, in your words, taking the piss?"

Shaun snorts and relaxes a little. "I'm an old man in a wheelchair," he says. "You'll find I take the piss whenever I can." He hesitates for a moment and then nods to the elevator. "Come on. Let's get you something to wear."

* * *

 

Maybe he should be sad. Desmond Miles had died, after all – and while he was dead for the last twenty six years, life moved on. Other people died. His father died, his mother died – Rebecca died. Shaun grew older. He missed out on all of that. He should feel sad.

He doesn't.

Shaun has done well for himself, despite everything, despite his poorly health. He broke free from the shadow of the Assassins and made a life for himself. He has a stable well paying job, he has a nice, well furnished house designed for wheelchair access…

"Used to have an android here too," Shaun says. "I mean, other than you, but… times changed." Desmond tilts his head at that and Shaun shrugs. "There's a reason I did this now and not back when androids were first created – though can't say I wasn't tempted back then. It just didn't feel… right back then. Now, now it's different."

"Are you going to actually explain or are you going to make me play the guessing game?" Desmond asks, tilting his head a little.

Shaun shrugs, looking a bit uneasy. "Figure I'll just let you have online access and figure it out yourself – easier that way. And you, uh… shouldn't get my bias on the matter."

Desmond frowns a little at that, confused.

"It's to do with androids, you know… like you," Shaun says, fiddling with a tablet. "And I know this is all exciting and weird for you but – there's gonna be procedures about this. And I'm already probably breaking all of them. So you do your own research on it, and get back to me."

"Research on _what_?"

"The robot revolution," Shaun shrugs and holds out the tablet. "Interface with this – it'll activate your online connections and permissions and all that."

Desmond lifts a hand before he's even sure what it is he's doing. Then he knows, and peels back his synthetic fluid skin, revealing the pure white of composite plastic that's his bare chassis. He lays his bared hand on the tablet and downloads the protocols. The transfer is instant.

[NETWORK ACCESS GRANTED] floats in front of him and then he is part of a network. It's not like the internet though – this is completely wireless and about three hundred times faster than any internet connection he'd ever seen in life. All he has to think of a term and he already knows the answer.

CyberLife started development in 2018 – first androids went into production 2022. By 2038, they'd proliferated the whole of US, taking over millions of jobs. 50% of households had a personal home assistant android, 23% had two. Militaries of the world had already adopted hundreds of thousands to millions of androids in their forces. UN alone used three hundred thousand androids as international peace force. US has a lot more. Only few countries had none – Canada, strangely, is one of them. They were still arguing over the issues of human rights concerning androids when the Deviant Movement begun.

It started on 6th of November, 2038 – by 13th, they'd occupied most of Detroit and the current president – Christina Warren, liberal democrat and a former internet celebrity – called for a ceasefire. Androids and humans have been negotiating human rights for androids ever since, with Markus, the leader of Deviant Androids on one side, and President Warren's Cabinet on the other.

Currently, though, androids are _to be considered enjoying human rights until proven otherwise_.

It all reveals itself to Desmond in articles, in essays, news reports, interviews. Markus' transmission that changes everything, the peaceful marches, the recycling camps which are called something far worse now… it's all there, and then it's all in his head, almost instantly downloaded and instantly understood. The steps taken, the changes wrought – and the present situation.

Desmond blinks and looks at Shaun. "You made me now because now I will be considered a person?" he asks, just to make sure.

Shaun fiddles with the edge of his blanket and shrugs. "It didn't feel right before," he admits. "There was this drone we named after you and – never mind. It didn't feel right to put your DNA files into an android, because it would be just… a fake, a thing. Not alive. Now…"

"Now?"

"Now it would've been pretty bloody shitty of me _not_ to do it, wouldn't it?" Shaun asks and looks up to him uncertainly. "I mean, you're not – not the original Desmond Miles maybe, but you're as much of him that survives, and that's already a lot. In essence, I had your spirit, and now the potential body was to be considered alive." He holds out two hands up, as if holding something. "It just seemed wrong to not do it, at this point."

Yeah, and guilt didn't play part in it at all, of course. Desmond runs a hand over his neck, mildly curious about the feel of it – they made androids supple, giving them soft skin. A lot like human's. The synthetic liquid even has a human average temperature. Under it he can feel the hardness and the hollowness of an android body, though – there's a lot of air in android chassis. Servos take less space than muscles and sinews.

"Alright," Desmond says then. "I guess that something."

Shaun stares at him for a moment and then sighs. "Starting to remember why I hated you so much in the beginning," he mutters and then reaches over to poke at Desmond's knee. "Feel free to have an emotional reaction anytime now."

"Don't think I can do that, Shaun," Desmond says and then feels a little disappointed at how close to a space 2001 joke he came and how short he fell of it.

"Why the hell not?" Shaun asks, scowling. "Little anger, little gratitude, little bit of fucking confusion – it's not hard. Just fucking _react_ somehow."

Desmond looks at him and sighs. "Sorry, Shaun," he says. "I can tell you made me well and I know that's something pretty cool, but…" he shakes his head. "I don't think I am a Deviant. So, no emotional reactions."

Shaun blinks. "You – what?" he demands incredulously, his voice rising an octave. "What do you mean – you're _human_ , Desmond!"

"Human memories in an android body," Desmond corrects apologetically. It's only simulated regret – he remembers what it was like to actually feel emotions, what it _felt_ for Desmond Miles. And this is not that. He's only pretending at most. "I'm sorry Shaun. I don't think I actually feel anything. I can simulate it, but…" but Desmond Miles wasn't a liar, so it doesn't seem fitting.

Shaun stares at him for a long moment, wide eyed with horror behind his glasses. "Fuck!" he then says, vehement and heartfelt and covers his face in his palms. Desmond stands by and waits as Shaun breathes through it, each inhale rasping like sandpaper. Disappointment, grief, rage – Desmond can _understand_ them, part of him even knows how they feel like, but it's… kind of like only having seen colours on computer screens. It lacks the proper shades.

"Oh, it bloody fucking figures," Shaun finally groans and lets out a hysterical little laugh. "I make android out of a human and it comes out a fucking machine. Just fuck me right up."

"Sorry, Shaun," Desmond offers again.

"Yeah," Shaun says and runs a hand over his face before looking up at him. "Guess that explains why you haven't asked about your dad or anything. Just... nothing, nothing at all?" he asks, a little plaintive. "You don't want to do anything, don't want to ask anything? Go out there and live a life?"

Desmond gives him a look. He had been wondering about his purpose, his duty, his job. Android would have, and Desmond Miles had died for him – it seems… _vital_ that he has a purpose. But he knows, logically, Shaun doesn't have one for him. Shaun didn't make him for a precise purpose. There's no rational reason to even ask.

"I don't…" Desmond starts and shakes his head. "Sorry. Maybe I'll think of something later but…"

Shaun stares at him for a moment and then turns away. "Fucking figures."

So, the very first thing Desmond does in his second life is cause disappointment. Yeah.

It figures.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eventually Desmond goes out looking for Markus and the Jericho crew in hopes of being manually Deviated.


	8. AC x Travelers cross.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crossover in which Desmond is replaced by a Traveler

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> proofread credit to nimadge

At first it doesn't look all that different, this place. Dirty alleyway, concrete, trash can filled to the brim – okay, that's new, back where he came from there wouldn't be a trash can, there'd be a recycling unit and it would be on, making unearthly noise. But the crowded alleyway, lifeless and dirty and altogether unpleasant, that's… almost homey, really.

But the air, oh, the air… the air is _different_.

There are two people there with him, two men in black suits, white shirts, black ties, mirror sunglasses, imposing. They're staring at him uneasily, shifting their footing, sharing looks through their sunglasses. He must've been screaming – he's been told it's an uncomfortable sight, for outsiders, seeing the transfer happen. Now that he's no longer screaming, though, they train their guns at him again, aiming steady.

"Hands above your head," one of the gentlemen orders. " _Now_."

"Alright, alright," he says and puts his hands up, crossing his fingers over the back of his head. Short hair, that's new, he thinks, and aims his eyes up. Baring your throat is unconscious look of vulnerability, it puts people at ease. "I'm complying, watch me comply…" he trails off, surprised.

There's no dome up there, no rebar or beams, no hanging UV-lights. The world isn't trapped inside a shelter. Instead, there's the _sky_. There's white clouds and little bit of darkening blue, showing just past the corner of the concrete box of a building at his back. _The sky_.

And none of them are dying of radiation exposure.

The men with guns wait for a moment to make sure he's compliant – and he _is_ , this is his mission, he's not going to fight this. But damn… the sky is beautiful and he doesn't look away from it even as one of the men steps forward to take one of his hands, then the other, wrenching them behind his back. The handcuffs feel cold and very final. No fighting now.

Slowly he inhales again, closing his eyes before he starts to cry over the _sky_. The air, it smells dirty but it smells also… pure. 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen and 1% other gasses. Pure, plant-produced oxygen, with zero filtration. It doesn't smell like metal, doesn't make his tongue tingle. It's so, so… clean.

"You're coming with us," the man still aiming a gun at him says. "Just try and resist, motherfucker, I dare you."

"I'm not resisting," he answers and tilts his head down, swallowing. "Not resisting at all."

He has no watch to check, not that he could anyway with his hands behind his back. No clocks anywhere nearby, it being a back alley of a bar. "Can either of you gentlemen tell me the time?"

"Time for you to shut up," the man at his back says and pushes him forward. "Walk."

Alright then. That's new though. The footage on the security camera never showed him walking. He takes few steps where he's ushered, towards the black vehicle with tinted windows waiting there, and just like that, history has been changed. Few steps that a man never took before, and it's all different.

In one timeline, Desmond Miles died here, on September 1st, 2012, at 17 seconds past 20:23, resisting an unlawful arrest by the private security forces of the Abstergo Corporation. His genetic information was rescued and stored, however, his blood drained out post-mortem – later his DNA samples became the basis of quite a few of DNA based theories and studies.

This time, it isn't his body that's being collected for autopsy – instead Traveller 0017 is shoved into a back of the car, where a man waits with a silver case of needles. He sighs, "But I'm not resisting _at all_ ," as needle is inserted into his neck, and everything starts blurring into darkness. With his last moment of coherency, he looks outside, his head coming to rest against the glass of the car window.

There are plants, grasses and a flower, growing from between cracked bits of asphalt. Just… growing there.

 _Beautiful_.

* * *

 

He wakes up briefly on an airplane – he's woken up with an ammonia inhalant and sense of vertigo that almost makes him throw up. "Rise and shine, Mr. Miles," someone says and he blinks blearily, coming to by increments.

Arms, legs, minute finger movement, check. His hands are chained to armrests, but there's little give there, so that's something. His toes tingle – sweaty in their shoes. He really needs to take a piss. That's just lovely.

Before him on a tray there's a best thing he's ever seen – a steaming hot meal of what he knows _intellectually_ is rice and meat, chicken it looks like, with fresh looking vegetables on the side. There's a little ball of what _has_ to be bread and sort plastic rectangular cup thing with word _butter_ on top. There's also a little cup with see through lid of something pinkish.

"Eat," the suit-wearing man who is putting the ammonia inhalant away orders, and with that, there's no power in the world that could stop him.

It's everything everyone ever described, and more. It's hot and varying, the texture all over the place and the taste, it fills his sinuses, pungent and perfect. "This is _amazing_ ," Traveller 0017 mumbles in amazement, and gets some strange looks from his guards. He doesn't care, taking another forkful of food and then reaching for the bread and the butter. He's had a bread mockup once, when he'd been young and it had been his tenth birthday, a special gift – but this, this is nothing like that. It doesn't taste a bit like yeast. And the butter…

0017 – or, really, should be thinking of himself as Desmond now, shouldn't he – just about melts in his seat at the taste of butter. "This is the best thing ever," he says earnestly and looks at his increasingly incredulous looking guards. "Have you tried this stuff?"

"You're crazy, man," the man says and shakes his food. "Who the hell likes airplane food?"

"If you'd ever eaten what I've been eating... man," Desmond answers and takes another bite. "Mmh," he breathes appreciatively. "Butter. Amazing."

They knock him out after the meal, but just for the little cup of berry yogurt, it's all so worth it, _so worth it_.

* * *

 

He still feels full with the meal he had on the plane when he's woken up again, this time in the back of a van, his hands again cuffed behind his back. One of his guards is sitting beside him with a smelling salt in hand, while another is sitting in front of him, gun trained at him. Judging by how numb Desmond's behind is, they've been driving for a while now.

"You guys," he slurs through the last of the of the anaesthetic, "isn't this a bit of an overkill? I'm a bartender." At least, that's what Desmond Miles was. 0017 had the data to put together drinks if he had to, but don't ask him to make tricks with bottles and shot glasses. "What do you think I'm gonna do, throw drinks at you?" he giggles a little at that.

"Shut up," the guard in front of him says, his gun never leaving him. "You're just lucky we don't have you strapped to a wheelchair and knocked out cold. But the guys upstairs want you lucid when we get there."

"Nice of them," Desmond says and leans his heads back – oof, mistake. The ride is bumpy and the moment he rests the back of his head against the metal of the van wall, the van jumps and his head his knocked forward. "Ouch," he mumbles. "So, where are we?"

No one answers him, of course not. Well, no matter. Judging by the fact that they woke him up in the middle of the flight, the duration was at least 8 hours and they wanted him delivered to the destination with a full-ish stomach. Of course he knew that they would probably take him, take Desmond Miles rather, to Rome – that's where Abstergo's mysterious Animus project was centred, after all – but it's interesting they wanted him fed and lucid once there. Almost like it wasn't just his DNA they are after.

Pity there aren't any windows. He'd seen pictures of what Rome used to look like, it was _beautiful_ , but he can't see any of it from the back of the van. Well, maybe later, if he didn't fail and get killed anyway…

The van eventually stops – judging by the sound of it, they drive into an underground parking lot first, though. There's that old familiar _underground_ quality to it. Once there and once in a stand still, the guards take out a bag – seriously? – and throw it over Desmond's head before his arms are grabbed at both sides, and he's pretty much dragged out of the van, heedless of whether his feet are taking part in the movement. He almost collapses onto the floor of the parking hall before he gets his legs under him and on with the program.

Ha, program. Maybe Desmond miles can be a man with jokes. These guys don't know what or who Desmond Miles was before his kidnapping, they wouldn't know if his personality was different. 0017 feels like he, as Desmond, could be a man with jokes.

He's taken to elevator – and then up 5 dinging levels. Level one, ding, level two, ding…

0017 has the blueprints of the place, of course, and all the information of the facility that survived into the future, codes and all. 5 dings on the elevator from the basement means 4th floor. Research and Development level where, supposedly, the Animus Project was conducted and in large part invented. Desmond Miles, had he lived, would've been it's 17th official human subject.

If the few recordings that survived of the previous subjects – mostly of Subject 16 – the special subjects were kept in their own wing of the Research and Development level, with their own accommodations, cameras at every corner – and barely any guards. The supercomputers needed to run the Animus program would be just behind the corner.

Now he just needs patience – and a bit of good luck – to make it.

The elevator stops and he's taken out, in part pushed and in part pulled. 13 steps from the elevator and then a stop. He can hear a key card being used and a keypad. Door opens, automatic, and he's taken through.

"Ah, finally," male voice. "Take those things off him and bring him here.

The handcuffs go first, opening clink by clink, then the hood is taken off. Desmond blinks at the suddenly blinding lights and squints around himself. He was right. It's definitely the Animus Laboratory – and right up ahead is Warren Vidic himself, standing beside the Animus, looking mighty official in his lab coat for a man who's barely even a doctor.

"Welcome, Mr. Miles," the man says while one of the guards aims his gun at him and the other puts the bag and the handcuffs away. "Please, take a seat, right here," Vidic motions to the Animus. "Now."

Desmond hesitates as long as he can, rubbing his wrists and looking around in apparent confusion. They'd never quite figured out what the Animus actually _was_ , that information was destroyed in part by Abstergo and in part by time itself. It had been a long, long time. All that remained was some of their records, spotty at best, of _genetic memory_ and one sample of best subject they ever had, Desmond Miles, who's DNA unlocked the true potential of DNA information storage.

What Abstergo was trying to do with genetic memory in this time, in 21st century, though… who knows. Their best bet was that Abstergo was trying to create designer babies, maybe, kids who would be born with knowledge and skills pre-installed. If they had succeeded, in following decades it would've been a multibillion business, once Crispr and other gene editing tools became more mainstream.

They never did figure it out, though. Instead Abstergo program had more or less stalled and went into a rut, after they failed to capture Subject 17 alive.

Now 0017 looks at the Animus and the connected servers – some of which are in the laboratory itself, that would be beyond handy – and wonders. This… this place does not look like a laboratory where you test blood samples, or any samples for that matter. Not by a long shot.

"Now, Mr. Miles!" Vidic snaps. "Sit down, _now_!"

Behind Desmond, one of the guards gives him a shove. "Alright, alright, sheesh," Desmond says, stumbling forward. "Give me a break here, it's not every day I get kidnapped and taken to – whatever this place is. What is this place, who are you, what – "

"Sit. _Down_." Vidic snarls and Desmond hops to sit on the Animus, awkward and curious. Vidic nods and then looks to the guards. "Someone go see where Ms. Stillman is," he orders impatiently. "She should've been here by now."

"I'm right here, Doctor," a female voice says as door whooshes open and the shut. Desmond looks up. She's blonde and dressed in a pencil skirt and dress shirt, the couple of top buttons open. She'd be Lucy Stillman, then. "I'm sorry for being late, I wanted to check that what happened the other week wouldn't happen again."

"The lower floor is completely powered down, then?" Vidic says, and motions at Desmond and at the Animus pointedly.

"Every single unit put on standby, yes," Stillman says and walks forward. She doesn't look directly at Desmond, glancing somewhere near his vicinity and then looking at Vidic. "Everything is ready and we shouldn't have any power fluctuations."

"We better not. Lay down, Mr. Miles," Vidic orders and turns to move around the Animus. "Ms. Stillman, start up the program."

Okay, this wasn't part of the plan. They didn't think Abstergo would throw Desmond Miles right into the thick of things, whatever the thick were. What they thought would happen is that they'd draw blood first, maybe take a tissue biopsy, a bone marrow biopsy at worst, and wait for the lab results. What he expected was to find himself locked in a cell until further notice. Not… not this.

And he still doesn't know what the Animus actually is. Shit.

Protocol 1 and 5, he thinks, and lies down. Whatever would happen, they are in view of cameras and if he died, there's good chance Abstergo would preserve DNA samples, like they had the first time around. With any luck, those samples would make it into the future. This would become just another rejected timeline and –

Stillman activates the Animus and a see-through visor slowly wraps over Desmond's face, activating into a screen. Okay, that… that's technology a bit head of it's time, they didn't start properly making see-through screens until 2034 – oh.

There's a DNA sequence in front of his eyes now. "What the…" he breathes. It's simplified chain of a double helix, but as he watches it clarifies into sections, into separate little files. They didn't even take a blood sample but somehow they're reading Desmond Miles' DNA all the same.

"Let's not waste time. Just find the right sequence," Vidic says, folding his arms. "It should've been marked in the Levantine line by the PoE proximity – the first encounters always leave mutation markers."

"Right," Stillman says and the DNA _scrolls_ through the visor, back and back more, into different strands. Like – oh. Like reading memory encoded DNA. They'd done some experiments with this, over the years, running some tests, but… nowhere in their records did they have anything about _Abstero being already able to read DNA files_.

"Shit," 0017 murmurs. That's… a problem. If Abstero wasn't researching DNA memory storage for future use, then they were after something somehow already stored into Desmond Miles' DNA. How the hell that was possible without use of nanites to actually _encode_ the information, he doesn't know, but the proof is right there, and –

"I got it," Stillman says. "It has the right mutation markers and the timeline is just about right – the first time his ancestral lineage came in contact with a PoE."

"Load it up, then let's get this over with."

And everything fades into white.

* * *

 

He's suddenly in a place he doesn't know, in a body he doesn't know, somewhere where people speak – Arabic, he thinks? The dialects are unusual though, he can't quite keep up with them. There's so many people, talking – he's in a garden, some sort, there's women – no he's on a street, by a fountain – there are women carrying water jugs on their head – somewhere in the distance, someone is talking – everything is flickering, flickering.

His brain is still sore after the Traveller transfer, still aching – 0017 has barely had the time to settle into the grey matter of Desmond Miles and now this. The Animus is projecting past, which looks like it happened hundreds of years ago, and he – can't –

It's a program – inserted into his head, reading his consciousness, like the ones they use to – to – what was it? It has a name, the – it reads the subconscious, transfers what the mind sees, they theorised it could be used to read the – Blackbox, that's what they called it, the Blackbox, for recording and extracting the last memories and thoughts of the dying in hopes of gaining useful information in case of –

There's a man in dark robes, bearded, one eyed, myth of Odin – no, he has - he is – his name is Al Mualim – no, that's a title. He's holding something, Altaïr thinks it's a -

His name is not _Altaïr,_ why does he think his name is Altaïr?

His brain hurts.

 _"I'm going to try and stabilise him,"_ Stillman's voice echoes over the flickering white _chaos_ in front of him. It doesn't have a source – it comes from everywhere.

 _"Listen to my voice, Mr. Miles,"_ Vidic's voice says, similarly directionless and omnidirectional. _"Recognise that what you're seeing isn't real – "_

Everything blurs and flickers, program trying to reboot itself and failing – he is walking into a crowd – he's beating someone up – there's so many people and they're talking, they're all talking and shouting – he can't –

_"Damn it, it's not working."_

_"Give it a moment, Ms. Stillman, he will adjust. The first time is never easy."_

He is _not_ adjusting, though, everything keeps flickering, and just for a moment, just _for a moment_ he's back in the shelter, under the dome – he's by the yeast vat – he's in front of the Director, officially accepting his mission and quietly saying his goodbyes – he's back in the garden and there's a tree, a _tree_ , a real _tree_ he can feel the coolness of it's shadow on his face –

 _"The memory is collapsing,"_ Stillman's voice. _"I'm pulling him out."_

_"No! We're still so far from where we need to be!"_

The program ends.

* * *

 

He comes to with a gasp and almost bangs his head against the visor. It spins around and off his face and he sits up, breathing raggedly. Sluggishly, his brain tries to catch up – but that was, that was just – what?

"Are you okay?" Stillman asks.

"Wh-what was that – what –"

"I told you he'd be fine," Vidic says dismissively and turns away. "Just give it a moment and we'll try again."

" _What_ ," Desmond says. There's still a dreg of this… _Altaïr_ somewhere in the back of his head, like a lingering taste, and somehow, _somehow_ he can almost sense his host too. A scent he could've never experienced but he knows it – the smell of tobacco smoke, that martini drinking _asshole_ smoking at the counter again, how many fucking times does he have to say that Bad Weather is a non-smoking bar, for Christ's sake – no, no, he's 0017, he's –

"What the _fuck was that_?" he demands, his eyes wide.

"Animus," Vidic says primly. "It's an Animus."

Desmond looks up at him, incredulous. "The fuck?" he asks. He's starting to like that word, it quite neatly encompasses what he feels right now. Just _fuck_.

"An Animus," Vidic says. "It's means of getting information out of people – people such as yourself. Quite brilliant, if I say so myself."

"Information," Desmond repeats and oh, _oh_ – no, shit, Protocols 1 and 5, he thinks. _Protocols 1 and 5, don't compromise the mission, 0017_. "What information?" he asks, even as the idea is starting to unspool in his head and it's actually kind of terrifying. "I'm a bartender, for Christ's sake – what do you want me to do, teach you how to mix a Martini?"

But he thinks he gets it now.

0017 is a programmer, one of the best ones really. It's why he was chosen for this particular mission, why he was put into Desmond Miles' important body, despite all the risks therein. There was something _special_ about this host body, something about his DNA that made it the key to figuring out DNA information storage. Abstergo knew it back in the 21st, and it was 0017's job to make a theory of an DNA Archive _work_. If it did work… then the Traveller program just might succeed.

As a programmer he knows intellectually what just happened. The Animus must be like the DNA readers they developed in the future, only it seems to use an organic component beyond just the DNA data sample. Just now it was somehow using his brain as the processor that was reading the data encoded into Desmond Miles' DNA. It should've been impossible as far as they knew, 21st _shouldn't_ have this kind of technology yet. Even in the future they didn't have the technology until fairly recently, relatively speaking.

So, that answers the question of what the Animus was. It turned human beings into DNA readers for their own DNA files – and judging by the setup here and what he'd heard while in the memory, the Animus also let those outside somehow view those memories being read.

All of it, the whole damn setup, is technology the 21st shouldn't have. Hell, seeing into people's memories, that's technology they didn't have in the future either, that's… that's completely new. It shouldn't be possible, and yet there it is.

But okay, 0017 can roll with this. He was trained to roll with these kind of punches. This is way beyond anything they'd theorised or suspected, but he can roll with it. He _has to_ roll with it.

Vidic says, "We know who you are, _what_ you are," in part dismissive and in part disgusted.

"I – I don't know what you're talking about," Desmond answers, still thinking.

"Don't play coy with me, there isn't time. You are an Assassin," Vidic says. "And whether you realise it or not, there's something my employers want, locked away into that head of years."

Desmond looks up. "I'm a _what_?" he asks.

"An Assassin," Vidic says and rolls his eyes. "I know, your file did indicate that you ran away and supposedly threw away that particular inheritance – most fortunate for us. But once Assassin, always an assassin, I'm afraid. It is, after all, in your DNA."

Okay, Desmond thinks. This is why the DNA archives are _needed_. They knew none of this, there was nothing about _any of this_ in Desmond Miles' file. All they'd known is that he was a bartender in New York, and was killed by Abstergo's private security – which happily was caught on camera, which gave them the T.E.L.L. – and then post-mortem he was the originator of countless branches of DNA research, but _this_ …

Well. Shit. His mission just got hell of a lot more complicated, didn't it?


	9. Creed - Stargate crossover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which genetic memory is analog

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for a Goa'uld, Warren Vidic and Clay's suicide.

"Magnificent, isn't it?" Vidic says, holding the _thing_ above Desmond's face, pinched between foot long tongs. It flails in them, lashing out like a snake, tail lashing out like whipcord. "It is a genetic marvel. Twenty years I've been studying it, and even now I've only barely begun to scratch the surface as to what it has to offer."

"I'd kind of like to admire it at a distance, honestly," Desmond answers. The thing is – he can't say ugly, it's not precisely ugly. It has same sort of aesthetic thing going on that some lizards do, which should be ugly but aren't because all the right parts are in the right places and it somehow works. Something about asymmetry, being pleasing to people and – really not the time. "Mind getting the thing off my face, doc?"

He'd get away from the thing if he could – hell, he'd crawl away screaming and flailing if he could, but he can't. They'd strapped him to a fucking gurney for this, for whatever Vidic is about and considering _everything_ that had happened so far… Desmond's not feeling too good about whatever it is.

The thing is really way too close to his face. He can smell it, and as it lets out shrill little _chirps_ , he can _smell it's breath._

And Vidic is completely ignoring him, marvelling instead the flailing snake thing. "I don't suppose you even know what it is, do you, Mister Miles? Of course you don't. Your ancestors knew _some_ but that was long time ago," the man says almost conversationally. "We didn't know either, I admit, not fully, not until recently. Symbiotes _they_ were called, then, but nowadays we know better. And this here, this beautiful creature, is a very special specimen. Perhaps last of it's kind, really."

Vidic turns the tongs and the flailing creature with them them, watching it a different angle. Desmond does the same, swallowing. It's white and red all throughout, streaked with red stripes that run along the length, with red – fins? Desmond thinks they're fins. Maybe spines. Whichever. It looks like a carefully bred pet snake, except snakes don't have _four jaws_. Or fins. Maybe it's a legless lizard of some sort?

"It kind of looks like you're hurting it," Desmond says, wincing, as the snake-lizard-thing shrieks. It's not-ugly-not-pretty and he can't say he feels all fuzzy about it being shoved at his face like this but – it sounds distressed and it looks so helpless.

Not much unlike him, even if he's not the one being held on tongs like piece of shrimp in chopsticks, about to be eaten. Ugh, bad metaphor.

"Oh, it's incapable of feeling pain," Vidic says dismissively. "It only possesses the most basic survival insticts and they can't survive in air for long – they take air through their skins, mostly, and nitrogen is poisonous to them. And they're sensitive to UV light. What we're seeing is it's automatic response to painful stimuli and it's urge to take a host, nothing more."

Desmond drags his eyes away from the white and red snake. "… host," he says.

Vidic looks at him. "Ask yourself why you're here, Mr. Miles," he says and considers the straps Desmond is tied down with. Across his chest, waist, thighs, ankles – his hands are held down too, with shackles that tie them close to the metal gurney. These guys really must be mistaken about who he is because damn, overkill much?

"Please Desmond tell me why I am here," Desmond says, and winces a little as the snake on Vidic's tongs makes another violent flail and it's tail comes close to his chest. It looks weirdly sharp and not, at the same time.

Vidic scoffs. "You are here because of who you are, _what_ you are," he says. "And what your ancestors did, long time ago. You see, this creature… it's genetically locked for very specific hosts," he says and waves the snake in Desmond's face again. "Specifically, you and your ancestors. Try and insert it into any other host but those with that specific genetic marker, and it will automatically kill the host instead."

"You are completely insane," Desmond says flatly, even as his heart starts to pound heavily in his chest. "And I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Of course not," Vidic says, smiling. "No matter. You will know _exactly_ once we're through here. I'm only bothering to tell you this so that you will understand the significance. If you put up any sort of struggle here… the consequences will be _very_ dire. Do you understand?"

Desmond swallows, looking at the white and red snake. "I, uh…"

Vidic leans in slightly. "This creature is worth more than the lives of everyone you have ever met. And if anything happens to it, rest assured… we will go and systematically kill each and every one of those people in retaliation. I will see to it personally. Do you understand?"

It's said with such a amiable tone of voice that Desmond freezes. The snake's flailing is getting weaker now – and now that he looks at it, it… it's kind of straining towards him. Somewhere behind Desmond's eyes, he sees flashes of all the regulars at Bad Weather, Mike and the girls, the bouncer who kept flirting with him in late hours despite being married… good guys, all of them.

And Vidic is batshit insane. "I – understand," Desmond says.

"Good," Vidic says. "Now, open your mouth, and for your sake and for the sake of everyone you know… _don't bite_.

Desmond lets out a hysterical laugh at that. Vidic holds the prongs lower, lower, aiming the snake at him and it's starting to flail again, straining towards him. Desmond kind of sees life flashing by him, and really, really wishes he was drunk and at home right now.

He opens his mouth and Vidic lets the snake drop. It seems almost to float for a moment, as time slows by and Desmond realises how fucking screwed he probably is.

The snake doesn't waste a damn second – Desmond is only just starting to reflexively close his mouth again as it dives right in. The thing tastes like copper and salt, sliding over his tongue and his throat – but it goes down smoothly, almost too smoothly. It's like the thing is weightless. There's a pinch of pain somewhere back of his throat, like he'd eaten something too dry and sharp, a scrape -

Everything goes white, just completely – it's like his eyes short out. He loses the feeling of everything, the pain, the taste, the sound of Vidic breathing, the weight of the binders holding him – he's as weightless as the snake that he'd – swallowed?

No. not swallowed, it didn't go down his throat. Just to the back and through, and right for his spine. He can't feel it, he can't feel anything, but somehow he senses it anyway. It's like a déjà vu – like it had happened thousand of times before and he knows exactly what happens. The creature is making space for itself, wrapping around his spine – attaching itself to his nervous system, to his brain, to his -

Desmond _winces_ in spirit as things tilt sideways and suddenly – suddenly he knows. He _knows_.

Creature, creation, from creaturae, from creo, from kreao, from kree –

He remembers everyone who's had it, who's lived with it, who'd then died and left it behind. Dozens of hosts, last one not so long ago. Clay Kaczmarek had been able to take the creature and not die, but it had been an uncomfortable fit – Clay lived in pain and madness, unable to parse the information, unable to handle it. His mind broke under it and he went mad – and killed himself to escape it all. Before him… before him…

Ratonhnhaké:ton refused to put the creature into to his daughter after he set aside his blades and so he sealed it away instead, locking the creature in a jar of salt water and ancient technology, to sleep the centuries away. Before him was Haytham, but he lost the creature when he betrayed the Brotherhood – it would not, _could_ not live within a Templar. Before Haytham there was Edward, who got it by mistake, taking a bottle from Duncan Walpole's body and expecting alcohol he ended up swallowing the creature instead. Before him…

There are memories of dozens of lives in Desmond's head and he remembers them all as if he'd just finished living them – finished being those people. From the moment they took the creature into their bodies, some by mistake like Edward, some in ceremony like Ratonhnhaké:ton and Altair, some in desperation like Ezio – Desmond remembers them all, their memories etched into the creature, to be passed onto the next host. The next Assassin in the line.

They called it the _Creed_.

"Goa'uld is what they call themselves, now," Vidic said to Clay, while trying to extract information from him. Desmond remembers it as if it had happened to him. "The lesser descendants out in the galaxy at large – inferior in genetic clarity and utility both, nothing like what Precursors made. The _Goa'uld_ managed to attain some sentience and went completely mad with it. What you have in your head, Mr. Kaczmarek, is one of if not _the_ last pure specimen. I do hope for your sake you take good care of it."

Clay slit his wrists rather than keep the thing in his head.

And now it's in Desmond's head, settling in like it belongs there, with all the knowledge it had accumulated over the centuries, sharing it automatically and indiscriminately. Joys and pains, pleasures and sins and all in between of all of it's previous hosts. Some of it's nice. Most of it isn't.

And among it all there is something Abstergo wants.

"Well," Desmond says into the white nothingness his mind had escaped to for the integration process. "Shit."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sudden Stargate nostalgia.
> 
> Also for clarity, the Goa'uld in this one is basically just a blank slate for memory storage and nothing more, it doesn't have a mind, just... all the knowledge and memories of all of it's hosts. And the AC genetic memory thing isn't a thing in this. No Animus, etc.


	10. Chains of Destiny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clay watching over Desmond's unconscious mind in the Animus Island.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> unbetaed

Clay walks back and forth slowly, idly rolling his ankles with each step, almost kicking at air, going back and forth beside Desmond Miles' unconscious body. Well, "body" is a bit of a stretch. Representation of a consciousness, at most. An anchor point between Desmond Miles' physical brain somewhere out there, in the real world where it's hooked into an Animus, and the genetic memories his conscious mind is experiencing in the simulation. Most there is in this in between version of Desmond are some dregs of his subconscious and they are barely holding onto coherency enough to make the digital body breathe.

"Sometimes I see the threads," Clay tells the body, looking down at him. Desmond lays as if man collapsed into unconsciousness, all spread-eagle and graceless, one leg propped up, hips slightly twisted, head tipped back. The guy has _some_ throat. Aftershave commercial material. "They're like… chains that we're walking on. Or being dragged on. Like we're trains on pulley systems and the cables run through us. From past into the future."

No answer from Desmond, of course. The guy is in Istanbul. Constantinople. Whichever. Having fun, killing Templars. Clay scoffs and looks away.

"Most people – well. Shit if I know, but I imagine, most people have like… net of chains. Like a necklace chains, tiny gossamer things, pulling them every which way. Go here, have a coffee, go there and buy a bagel, you know?" he asks. "Meaningless things they spend time doing in their future. At most they got this thicker finger thick chain that might lead to a job or a husband or wife, or children – you know, shit that takes you _years_ , but… overall affects hundred of people, at most. Most people are so insignificant, you know? Hundred years after their deaths and no one will remember their names."

Above them the storm is rolling in, like on clockwork. Every 15th hours, the weather pattern in the Black Room switches over. First clouds, then distant lightning, thunder. 16th hour, and there'd be pouring rain that would last precisely 1 hour, before night cycle started and it thinned down to mist and then evaporated. By morning, it would be clear skies. And so it went, over and over, ad infinitum.

Clay looks at the flashes, catching them before they flare over the clouds. He can almost count the prongs in the spark of lightning that hits the west corner of the island. It doesn't actually hit ground, he knows, he tried to find where it hit so he could arrange himself to catch it, but… it never actually hit. Just looks like it does.

"Time doesn't give a shit about what we do," he says. "Just pulls us along. Or it's like…" there is no term for it in any language he knows – he's tried to find it. How can you describe a concept that's standing-on-bodies-of-everything-that-came-before-and also being-pulled-forward-by-hands-of-people-you-will-never-meet? The top branches of the family tree are the only ones that see the light – the only ones who will ever know the cross sections that came before them and mostly none that came before those. And when they forget, who cares?

"It rolls on. Over us, all _over_ us, and sometimes I can see it," Clay says and stops to stand over Desmond's unresponsive body, motioning to the horizon. The tide is rolling in. "The ebb and flow of _time_ and how it anchors us. We're trapped on these paths – but they're not linear. It's… a web. A net. We're fish caught in lines and the tide is choking us to death, tugging at those nets. Our family trees. Our… decisional trees."

He stops to grasp at a concept but it's – not right, not there yet. Desmond doesn't know about videogames anyway to make sense of it. Whatever.

Clay sighs and looks down at the representation of a man. "I got a hole in my chest," he says and motions on it. "Though it runs a cable of time, and I'm just hanging there, dead. Just barely there, can't even move, nothing pulls me along anymore. You though, you got _this_ thing," he motions the Desmond's chest. "The fucking anchor chain of the Titanic. You could lasso the Sun with that thing, if you just fucking knew."

There's a crack of thunder. There are moments when Clay fears it – when there's fingers in his head, whispers, and what's left of his neurons, the afterimages of intelligence, are being split open… then the thunder scares him. But Juno is elsewhere now, and he can think clearly – and the thunder is just code. Human made code, mostly – not the universal background Calculation that covers… everything.

Clay scoffs. "You know there's a chance this is all a simulation. Not just this," he motions at the simulation around them, "But _everything_. Outside world, the real world. You, me, everybody. The Isu too. This could all be an ancestral simulation run by some human species so advanced we'd call them aliens. Little simulated Earth in all of it's historic glory, running on the Matrioshka Brain that's choking the life out of the Sun, consuming it for fuel. Wouldn't that be fucking ironic?" Clay stops and considers it. "Would make more sense than everything else about our lives."

Too much sense, really. Reality is too fucked up for that much sense.

Clay crouches down and looks at Desmond, dead to for all the world to see… of which there is only Clay, to see him. All in his lonesome in their little soap bubble of an universe.

"When you die," Clay says softly to Desmond. "It will wipe out an entire _branch_ of alternate timelines. Not just one or dozen or hundred possibilities. _Sextillion_ of them."

Making his hand into a finger gun, Clay aims it to Desmond's temple, where little hairs curl inward. If the guy grew out his hair, Clay just bets he'd have curls, proper bouncy curls. Could be cute. "Ka-bow," Clay says and whirls his nail on the little curl of hair. "And they all go boom."

Clay himself wasn't written on any of those futures though. Not everyone can be the Titanic of Destiny, being dragged towards the Iceberg of the Sun.

Sighing Clay sits down, crosslegged, on the sharp, jagged gravel beside Desmond's body. He looks towards the portal in front of them, and through it into Desmond's genetic memories. Somewhere in 16th century Istanbul, the guy is climbing a tower, the dry wind in his – in Ezio's – hair and all the time of the past at his disposal to take a look-see at the had-beens. Nice for him, the lucky bastard.

"If only you knew how desperate She is to get you killed," Clay mutters, shaking his head. "Every future where you live, She doesn't. Every future where you die… She wins." He considers it for a moment and then makes a face. "Well, not every – just a statistically overwhelming majority. The numbers get a little… insane generation or two in. Word to the wise, don't try keeping numbers with twenty, thirty digits in your head, it's just not worth it."

Clay closes his eyes. So much numbers. So much _for_ numbers.

"Shit," he mutters and lifts a hand to rub it over his eyes. He doesn't even _have_ eyes anymore, and yet he still somehow feels eyestrain because he forgets to blink. Like he should even _need_ to blink anymore. Fucking Animus background programming.

"And there is shit all I can do for you," he mutters. "Every time I try to say something, She gets a hand around my code and I'm reduced to fucking bytes. I beg and plead and curse and cry and fucking nothing gets through."

There is an alternate reality Juno fears the most – the one Clay can't even word in his mind. She tries to delete it from his mind so he only remembers glimpses of it, shining glowing things that burn at his nonexistent retinas – of Desmond with the power of the Sun at his shoulders, wreathing him in fire. Seventy five thousand, eight hundred and ninety four years since the death of the Isu, generations of religions build up to prop up their dying memory with the power of Worship of False Gods… and in one of the multitudes of possibilities, in one of them, they make one themselves.

And the Iceberg melts.

Clay frowns and the thought is blown away by the rising winds of the oncoming storm, a bit of ash from nonexistent fire.

"What am I doing," he mutters and looks at Desmond. Still out cold, still in Istanbul – still on the pre-selected linear destiny of death in his near future. He'd survive in genes, in samples, in stolen memories, preserved in plastic. The new Henrietta Lacks, only it would be his data that would be immortal, not his disease. Not his mind.

And there's fuck all Clay can do.  "What am I supposed to do?" he asks and throws a pebble at the unconscious guy. No reaction. None whatsoever.

None ever more.

 _Help Desmond Miles_.

Yeah.

Trying.


	11. Retirement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ezio gets a visitor to his vineyard

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Proofread by nimadge

The first time Ezio notices the boy, he thinks it must be one of Flavia's schoolmates from the village, or perhaps one of the local farmers' kids, there to see the old fool at work. He knows he makes something of a ridiculous figure in the vineyards - man in his sixties, who's only now learning the art of farming, fumbling about in the dirt. It is a bit foolish - and truthfully half of the time he doesn't know what he's doing - but he's far too old, far too stubborn, and honestly far too content with his life to be embarrassed for his lack of skill.

But the boy isn't laughing at the mistakes he's making or the weeds he's missing - even when a stray branch catches on Ezio's sleeve and snaps up and at his face, the boy's expression doesn't shift much. He only stands there, by the fence that separates the garden from the road, and watches. The most he does is lean on to the fence with folded arms and sigh.

Ezio bears it with as much grace as he can be bothered to muster, mostly ignoring the boy and going about his less than grandiose business of checking the vines and weeding the gardens. It lasts him about two days until the curiosity gets the better of him - for it seems whenever he comes to the fields, the boy is already there, waiting. And he is there when Ezio finishes, still waiting.

So, once he is done with that day's work on the vines - honestly, he might be doing more work on them that is strictly speaking necessary - Ezio gathers his rake, his basket of weeds and dead leaves, and instead of the farmhouse, he turns towards the boy.

It isn't until he comes close that he sees how strange the things the boy wears are. He wears a dark shirt with short, cut off sleeves that sits closer to skin, and strange breeches that reach his ankles, their fabric tough and dark blue - and on his feet he wears the strangest footwear, colourfully red with a white sole and white lacing made all the more bright for the vivid colour of the shoes on general. Around his waist he's tied a white doublet by its sleeves, and it hangs about his hips like tails.

The boy himself is short-haired and vaguely foreign, with handsome enough face, memorable. He has a scar that cuts over his lips, a thin pale line made more noticeable by how darkly tanned he is. With his arms bare, Ezio can see the marks on his skin - on his right arm he has an extensive burn, pink and painful looking… and on his left there is a tattoo, which in sharp spikes and twists curls around the entire arm.

Odd. All of it is very odd.

Ezio sets his rake down, his interest well piqued now. "You seem to find a great deal of entertainment in an old man's work," he comments. "Don't you have anything more interesting to do?"

"Not really," the boy says. "I like it here. It's peaceful."

"Yes, it is at that," Ezio agrees, considering him, trying to place his face. The boy looks familiar, somehow, but he can't quite tell how. Maybe he's a relative of someone Ezio knows? "What's your name, boy?"

The boy hesitates, pushing away from the fence indecisively and then leaning back forward again. "Desmond," he says finally.

Ezio's breath catches.

The boy gives him a wry smile and then looks away, at the farm, at the rows of grape vines. "It's a nice place you've got," he says a little wistfully.

"I like it well enough," Ezio agrees, quickly regaining his composure and looking the boy over with closer eye. He's… far too young, fifteen at the very most, tall for his age but still, too young. The message was decades ago, twenty four years now - this boy couldn't even have been born then.

No, of course not.

"That's an interesting name," Ezio says, setting his basket down as well and going over to the fence, leaning on it while rubbing at his back. "I don't think I've ever heard the like. Do you know where it originated?"

"Ireland, I think," the boy says thoughtfully.

"Oh, you have roots in Ireland?" Ezio asks while his mind wonders. He'd looked for years, for decades, for the source of the strange name and - _Ireland_? Truly? He honestly hadn't expected that.

"I don't know. Probably," the boy, Desmond, says. "I come from all over, so it wouldn't surprise me. But I think my parents just liked the name."

"I see," Ezio says, "Well, it's certainly an unique one."

"Hmm," Desmond agrees and leans his chin on his burned palm, where the skin is cracked and dark. He sighs. "Do you like it here?" he asks. "Living like this?"

Ezio looks at the vineyards and decides to be honest. "As much as I expected to," he muses. "It's slower living than I expected, but it gives me time to do other things. Write, contemplate."

"Contemplate?" the boy asks.

"Set my mind at ease about things I regret," Ezio says and gives him a smile. "I'm very old, I would have you know, old enough to have many regrets."

The boy looks a little sad about that. "Sixty five isn't that old, Ezio," he says and sighs. "Altaïr lived to be ninety two, you know."

The hair on the back of Ezio's neck stands on end as a shiver runs down his back - he looks at the boy again, warier. "Well, we can't all be Altaïr Ibn-La'ahad, can we?" he says slowly.

"It's unfair, that's all," Desmond says and looks down, almost sullen. "But I guess it's fine, if you're happy how it all went down."

Ezio hesitates over the words for a moment, spoken as they are with a slight childish dejection, all the more disturbing for that. "Well, now you're making me nervous - you make it sound like this is my last autumn."

The boy sighs and says nothing, staring at the ground with a look of unhappy thoughtfulness. He says nothing.

Ezio isn't sure if this is real anymore - it cannot be, surely? - but whatever it is, a dream or a nightmare, he has to ask. "So, you think I did well with my life?"

Desmond looks up. "You did amazing," he says, his mouth still at an unhappy downward curl. "You did incredible things, you rebuilt the Brotherhood greater than it's ever been - greater than it will ever be again. You did… so many incredible things."

"I made some mistakes also," Ezio says quietly. "I often left things to fester, did not see my missions to their ultimate conclusions. I killed and left, and the rest fell as it did, with not even a moment of consideration from me as to consequences, the setbacks of my actions."

"Human brain is a funny thing," Desmond says and shrugs. "One failure outshines ten successes. You put an end to conspiracies, stopped Templars - freed cities and protected people. Sure, you did it with the power of murder, and of course that had consequences, but - you never killed innocents, and if there's setbacks for the deaths of the guilty, well, that's something the guilty should have thought about before committing crimes."

Ezio hums. A cruel way to look at it now, isn't it. "Their families were innocent," he murmurs. "And I know many of them suffered."

Desmond looks at him, leaning his elbows on the fence. "Yeah," he agrees. "They probably did. But so did you, when Rodrigo had your father and brothers hung. They aren't the only victims in that - you were too."

Ezio lowers his gaze at that. So is this the viewpoint of gods then, crime balanced with loss? Does loss justify murder, then? He'd certainly thought so when he'd been young - now he remembers, now he learns about what his actions caused, and often he feels only shame and pity.

Desmond watches him silently for a moment and then looks at the farm again. "Do you think I could stay here for a bit?" he asks. "Help you out on the farm, maybe? I promise, I won't be in your way."

How could Ezio refuse. "As long as you'd like," he promises. "Though I'm afraid there is not that much to do around here."

"Anything is better than nothing," Desmond says and climbs over the fence.


	12. Stargate Cross

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is a Solar Flare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unbetaed due to timezones and impatience.

Jack is at home when the world is apparently supposed to end. He watches it all happens and doesn't get one bit of it – one moment it's clear skies as far as the eye can see, and then suddenly, northern lights in the middle of the day. They spread over the sky like cloak as clouds are blown away, and for a moment the whole world is lit in purple, green and red, as the colours race over head, the fastest, brightest Aurora Borealis he's ever seen.

So, he thinks, that's weird, and goes to get his phone before it can start to ring – which it does, just as he's putting his fishing gear away. The Northern lights are still going, still bright – he can see them even inside, they're lighting up the whole forest outside his house.

"I take it I'm not the only one seeing this?" Jack says to whoever's calling – and then, the flash.

He's probably lucky he's inside – even then the thing is blindingly bright. The gentle light of the mysterious northern lights is completely overwhelmed by the blinding outpour of just… _light_. For a moment outside there are no shadows, no shades – just light, as if someone caught flash of lightning, held it suspended and gave it a slightly yellowish hue. And Jack thinks he knows what it is – he's seen something… a bit too much like it.

"Yep, that's a solar flare," he mutters, to no one on the other end. The line's gone dead. Outside, his truck's hitherto dead car alarm is going wild – the aid conditioning cuts off, as power goes out. The light goes on and on and on… "Well shit."

_You must go._

Jack checks his phone screen – yep, it was the mountain – and then goes to get his sunglasses and hat and head off.

Driving under the blinding glare is not the most fun ever, but he manages it – doesn't help that lot of cars are just stalled on the road, their more modern electronics fried. There are lot of car alarms going, sirens in distance, and still somehow everything seems… too quiet. Radio doesn't work, either, and phone lines refuse to connect.

It's not a full distribution but there's definitely some magnetosphere shenanigans going on in the atmosphere. And damn, if the sun keeps on going on like this, the electromagnetic disturbances are probably the least of their worries.

He times the thing as he drives, going by the moment when the call from SGC cut short. At 17 minutes, 16 seconds, the flare starts wearing off, the sun still _flashing_ sort of worryingly but the blue of the sky becomes clear again, and yep, there's the northern lights, still going strong. Jack chances a glance at them through the windscreen and then pulls his sunglasses firmly back on and puts the pedal to the metal, weaving past stalled vehicles.

The mountain is abuzz – there's cars lining the front, everyone having raced to work apparently. Daniel is there too, squinting at the sky through sunglasses from under a dorky sun hat.

"Jack."

"Daniel. What's going on?"

"You know about as much as I do – I headed back the moment the northern lights started. The front door's jammed – the system went into automatic lockdown," Daniel says and makes a face at the sky. "That was a solar flare, right?"

"Looked like it," Jack says, peering at the sky and then looking down. "Don't look at it."

" _You_ looked at it."

"I _glanced_ at it, you're _staring_ at it. Didn't your parents ever tell you not to look directly at the sun?" Jack asks and shakes his head. "Carter's inside, I assume?" She has shorter trip to make and he can't see her anywhere topside.

"I assume so – she said she had some calculations to go through," Daniel says and then looks up at the sky. "Is it just me or should that have been – bad?" he asks and then motions at the northern lights. "And also, that, is that normal? I'm no astronomer, but that doesn't seem normal. And it started _before_ the solar flare too."

Jack glances at the sky – not at the sun – and then shakes his head, turning to the doors. The airmen stationed there are holding people off. "Gentlemen," Jack greets them. "What's the situation?"

"Sir, the electronics shorted out," one of them says. "We're working on getting the backup running right now and –"

There's a clank, as the massive blast door unlocks from inside, before moment later starting to open.

"Stay back, people!" one of the other airmen call to the civilian scientists filing to enter. "The system is down and we will need to check ID's – get your ID ready and form an orderly line –"

_You must hurry._

"Daniel," Jack calls, before pushing to the front and, with the perks of rank, makes it in first.

Outside, the northern lights finally start fading away, the solar flare finally passing.

* * *

 

So. It's not everyday you find out that you and everyone and everything you have ever known should have just died. It's only like, once, maybe twice a year thing. And Honestly, Jack thought they were full up on the world-ending-events thing already for the year.

"Prometheus' shields barely held," Carter reports to a room of rather stunned SGC personnel, Hammond at the head scowling with confusion and concern. "Hundreds of satellites were just vaporised – including all the L1 point satellites, which gave barely any warning on time. And the electromagnetic disturbance was pretty much planet wide. I wouldn't be surprised if any moment now we will start getting reports about power plant failures – certainly most of the power grids must be down, globally."

"I thought this was supposed to be a mild solar event," Hammond says.

"Wait, we knew about this?" Jack asks. "Why didn't I know about this?"

Carter gives him a confused look. "Sir, it's been all over the news for two weeks now," she says and then looks at Hammond. "And yes, it was predicted to be mild – some electromagnetic activity at the poles was expected but nothing in this magnitude."

"And what was the magnitude of the flare?" Daniel asks. "Because I was out there, it didn't look mild."

"No," Carter agrees, shaking her head, her eyes wide. "No, that was a superflare. This – this was a world ending event."

Before any of them have the time to even begin to digest that, Walter rushes into the room, saying, "Sir, Colonel Pendergast is on the line – he says they have something you need to hear immediately."

Hammond nods and gets up, all of SG1 following to hear it. The general takes the call in the control room, where everyone is wildly trying to get their systems back running properly – but most of whom stall to listen. "This is General Hammond, what's the situation on orbit, Colonel?"

"Sir, it doesn't look good, but that's not why I'm calling," Pendergast says. "I think this takes priority. Sir, we're detecting energy readings from the planet below – we picked up some of it just prior to the flare."

"What kind of energy readings?" Hammond asks, frowning. "A solar flare of this magnitude could cause catastrophic failures in any number of systems – was it nuclear?"

Aw shit, Jack hadn't even thought of that – what a global sorta-EMP might do to the nuclear arsenal. Holy _shit_ , that's a scary thought.

"No, sir, it was – we think it was alien," Pendergast says. "We only managed to properly catch the tail end of it, but our scientists here say it read like – like a shield, sir."

"A shield?"

"Yes, sir, a ship's shield – an energy barrier which spread over the – the whole world, sir. Our people up here think that was what the northern lights were about – it was the… the energy shield."

There's a moment of silence, while Jack shares looks with his team and Hammond quickly reorients himself. "Do you have coordinates for the origin of the energy readings?" he asks, turning to look at SG1.

"Yes, sir – I'm sending the coordinates now. It was in New York, sir – near a small town named Turin."

Hammons arches his brows at Daniel who shakes his head, wide eyed – apparently nothing overly exciting about Turin, archaeology wise. "Very good, Colonel," Hammond says so the microphone. "Is your beaming technology online and is it safe to use after the electromagnetic activity?"

"We're running diagnostics now – will know in couple of minutes."

"Good, keep us posted," Hammond says and nods to Jack.

 _You must go_.

"Gear up?" Jack asks – he's still wearing a hoodie.

"Looks like you're heading to Turin," Hammond says. "Whatever it is, if we can detect it, some others might be able to do – and I don't want any offshoot or NID or Trust or whatever they are calling themselves these days getting their hands to it first. Get there, secure it."

"Gearing up it is," Jack says with a nod.

* * *

 

So, not only was the world going to end, but either someone knew about it, was prepared for it, and _somehow_ had the ability to protect an entire planet from the wrath of a _star_ … or they're dealing with some ancient alien doing them a solid with automatic protection from probably beyond the grave. Jack's money is on the Ancients.

"Either way," Jack mutters. "Not how expect to spend my Christmas break."

"It is not Christmas yet," Teal'c comments calmly.

"And look on the brighter side," Daniel comments. "We're not dead."

"You know, for the bright side to work, you would have to have a dark side," Jack says. "I'm not sure it applies here. Like, we didn't even know this was coming. So there's the side where we live and then there' the side where we all die in super solar flare. How the hell did no one see this coming?"

Carter clears her throat. "Obviously _someone_ did," she points out.

"I would've preferred heads up, how about you?"

"Whatever stopped the solar flare seems to have been immensely powerful," Teal'c comments. "No Goa'uld has such technology – and it seems unlikely that people of earth would, either. As such, it is unlikely whoever set it up was not from earth."

"Your point?" Jack asks.

Teal'c blinks at him. "Perhaps they did not deem it important to inform us of the protection's existence. Or could not."

Jack scoffs. It's all sensible and it's not like there's actually that much to complain about being saved from world ending events but damn, he's cranky. He doesn't like this, any of this. He does not like his day being ruined by world ending events. Sue him.

Turin doesn't seem like much. It's woodsy nature area, hilly and bit mountainous with plenty of rivers and little ponds, with Lake Ontario just a hop and a skip away. Prometheus drops them right in the thick of it, as close to the energy readings as they safely can – something about the location's general magnetic activity made the technicians a bit twitchy, so it's good walk away from where whatever it was started.

Which is how they find that there's definitely been movement in the area. And not by flying saucers or anything sensible like that.

"Tire tracks," Carter reports, examining the mosses and grasses off the beaten path.

"These seem very recent," Teal'c adds, kneeling down to check them. "And it seems like they left in a great hurry."

Jack glances over – yeah, he can see it. They wore grooves into the moss layer by how quickly they hit the gas – the vehicle even skidded. It's a small wonder they didn't hit a tree. "Recent like, last half an hour recent?"

"Seems like it," Teal'c says, and looks ahead.

"Looks like there's something up ahead," Daniel comments and motions to the side of a hill. "Bet you anything that's a cave."

"No bet," Jack says and grabs his p90 tighter, aiming ahead. "Carter, you take the rear. Teal'c, with me. Daniel, don't touch anything."

It's testament to how weird all of this is that Daniel doesn't even complain. They move as a unit towards the cave mouth, to find that, yeah, there's definitely been activity here, recent and very modern. There's cables running in the cave, scaffolding, platforms for moving things on wheels over rough terrain. Someone had set up a shop here – and left in a damn hurry.

"Don't like this, don't like this at all," Jack says. He'd expected like… ancient automatic security system. He didn't expect established hide out of very modern equipment. Damn, he's too used to dealing with threats off world. "Carter, call Prometheus, get us some backup down here."

"On it," Carter says, reaching for her EMP proof Asgard-based communicator.

By all rights they should wait for backup but –

 _Time is short_.

Jack nods and presses onward. "Let's go," and SG1 falls into their usual positions around him, as they move to enter the cave.

Daniel stares at the walls in wonder as they go, murmuring, "I think this cave was used by native Americans – look at those markings – but the carvings beneath, those don't look like anything characteristics to the tribes in this area… and see those clean lines? Incredible…"

Jack ignores him, keeping his eyes up front. There's light ahead. Not natural light. Yeah, he doesn't like this one damn bit.

They come to a cave, a big-ass cavern of what looks a lot like volcanic rock. Jack only notices that at all is because the rock of the tunnel starts turning into goddamn _obsidian_ and then the cave opens and the _thing_ across the cavern takes all their attention.

There's a glow, obviously very alien… _something_ across the space. A field of white shimmers there, and there's sources of light somewhere in the rock beyond it, and more light past that, and yeah, this is no normal cave.

"Doesn't look like something Goa'uld built," Jack says, tight.

"Yeah, no, this is something… something else," Daniel answers. "It's a little different – but look at the shape of those columns, and the wall there? It looks a little like the architecture on Heliopolis – Ernest's Planet."

The things Daniel remembers – most Jack remembers from the place is that it _sucked_.

"Sir," Carter says quietly. "Look – computers."

And not just computers. Computers, chairs, beds – it really looks like someone set shop here for a while, for weeks maybe. There's even bags of garbage to the side – with food wrapping sticking out one of the bags.

"We can deal with that later – I think the big alien looking thingy over there takes the priority," Jack says tightly. "Come on."

Together they move across the broken floor of the cavern, Jack peering occasionally into the holes open in it. This place, whatever it was, has gone through a wringer – and why is there lava rock everywhere? New York isn't exactly known for it's volcanic activity.

Up a set of steps, Jack can't tell if they're stone or metal or both somehow, and to weird mechanism. The white lit space is beyond them.

"Carter?" Jack asks, and she quickly goes to check.

"I don't know the technology, sir," she admits. "It doesn't look familiar at all. I'm getting some energy readings from it, but…" she takes a stone from the floor and throws it into the white. Nothing happens – the stone falls, clatters on the floor, and stalls. "I think it's been… turned off, whatever it is."

"Some sort of shield, perhaps," Teal'c comments, looking at the white shimmer. "The mechanism of it seems to be still be active."

"Got something here," Daniel says, and picks up something from the floor. A flat ring in a leather strap – like someone's necklace, except for the obviously alien designs on it. "I think I found the key to the front door," he comments, looking between the ring necklace and ring shaped spot on the weird shield mechanism thing.

"Yeah, and I think I can see the guest," Jack says and moves ahead.

There's a body, lying not far from them – a man it looks like, wearing jeans and a white hood. He's lying spread eagle and awkward on the edge of some sort of pedestal – there's tech of some sort there, kind of weird half podium thing, and a sort of bowl underneath it.

The man doesn't move and after making sure there's no one else in the area, Jack crouches down to check for pulse.

"Looks like he's been burned," Daniel comments with a hiss of sympathetic pain. "Look at his _hand_."

Jack digs two fingers onto the unconscious man's neck, feeling and –

It's not a pulse. Hell it's not even something he gets from the guy – it's more like suddenly there's voice in his ear, or like someone's put hand on the back of his head, pushing at him, urging him to _do something_ and Jack suddenly realises that he _really_ needs to be doing CPR right now.

So that's what he does, before he even realises what he's doing – he swings the P90 behind his back and moves to resuscitate, kneeling over the guy and beginning to work on compressions. His team doesn't question it, they only act – Daniel moving to do rescue breaths while Carter gets back on the com, calling for Prometheus, telling them to prepare for a beam up – and that they need a medic urgently.

In the corner of his eye Jack sees a shimmer of white and as he puts all of his strength into getting the unconscious guy's heart beating again, he swears he can hear someone sighing with relief.

* * *

 

The doctor in Prometheus' medical pronounces that the guy will survive – but that depending on how long his brain was without oxygen, there might be side effect. The guy's arm is damaged too – they get some funky readings from it but no radiation damage, so far. Whatever happened to him, it got pretty damn close to killing him. The guy is put on life support, just in case.

"He's gotten massive shock of… some kind," Carter announces later. "Whatever that thing was, using it wasn't without its risks, apparently."

"Wonder if he knew what he was doing?" Daniel murmurs. "I mean, if what we think happened did happen, he saved the world, right? Almost at the cost of his life. It's…" he shakes his head in wonder.

"Yes, it's very damn impressive – what I want to know who he is, how he knew about any of this and what the hell that place is," Jack mutters. "Any idea when he might wake up?"

"After the shock he took to his system?" Carter asks.

"We'll have him transported to the SGC as soon as the doctor clears it," Colonel Pendergast says. "In the meanwhile, we'll secure the site. There's already been some activity in the area."

"What kind of activity?" Jack asks warily. "And do we have anything on anyone, you know… leaving the area in haste, after the deed was done and they left their guy to apparently _die_?"

"Nothing on that sir, but we did intercept a van making their way to the area – just some tourists, who wanted to get higher up to have look at what the solar flare had done to the area," Pendergast says. "Nothing to be worried about, but just in case my men have set up a perimeter in the are."

Jack nods, chewing on his nail. "I'm going to go make a report to Hammond, recommend we get couple teams from SGC to the site, and some tech experts," he says. "Right. Call me if the hoodie guy twitches."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man it's been ages since I wrote anything Stargate related. I'm all tingly with nostalgia.
> 
> Might be continuing this one because I already got whole world build for this fusion.


End file.
